Author Topic: Yet Another Icon Replacement Idea* (Read 168 times)

lemur · « **on:** January 04, 2002, 06:36:00 PM »

The big issues that people keep bringing up are:

Icons make planes stand out too much, making bounces too hard.

It's too easy to ID planes at really long ranges (especially perked planes)

People want an intermediate ID range where you just know if it's a buff or a fighter and know if it's a friendly or not.

Here's the alternate suggestion in several parts.

1) Reduce icon range significantly.
2) Balance this with a Friend or Foe icon at med range (under 2000 yards) this icon would grow / shrink based on the size of the plane in your view.
3) Add a key/button that increases plane size by x10 while this button is held down.

This way if you happen to spot a dot off in the distance you can hit this key and ALL planes will effectively be zoomed in. This represents the eye's ability to discern objects much more clearly than you can manage on a 1024 x 768 monitor.

This also represents the fact that carefully looking at an object is an active not a passive thing (i.e. you wouldn't be able to do this is a real-life dogfight) and it'd mess you up more than a little bit if you just kept the button down all the time (you're shooting at a plane that looks like it's at 100 yards when it's really at 1000)

Example #1: The furball

You spot three dots in the distance. You hit the magic zoom key and they grow into huge planes as long as the button is down.

Now that they are bigger you notice that two *look* like spits and one might be an F4u. One has a friendly icon next to it and two have enemy icons next to them (FoF icons grow with the plane size)

So you fly towards the dots. As you get closer (within about 2000 yards) their FoF icons grow enough so you can easily tell who is an enemy and who isn't and within 1000 it actually tells you (with text) they are a friendly (cpid) and an enemy spit & an enemy f4U.

Example #2: The One on One

You are scanning the skies and you see a dot closing fast. You hit the magic zoom key and EEEK it's an enemy it's 2000 away and it's a zeke (positive id when zoomed at that range)

After that you don't really need to use the magic zoom key. He's an enemy, you know who he is, etc.

As an added feature you could make the zoom take some time to take effect. This simulates the time it takes to scan a section of the sky effectively. For every second you held down the key the planes would zoom by x1. So it'd take a full 10 seconds for the zoom to take effect. Whenever you switch views (from say your 6 to your 3) the zoom resets and starts over again.

This is a VERY close simulation of how hard it is to scan the skies. And it allows players to work on their plane IDing skills and if forces folks to really work on their situational awareness.

Just a thought.

~Lemur

BenDover · « **Reply #1 on:** January 04, 2002, 06:54:00 PM »

sounds good

ra · « **Reply #2 on:** January 04, 2002, 07:15:00 PM »

Forget the 10x zoom, that's just as unrealistic as icons are. Just put the delay on the icons, so you don't have instant information at a glance. The farther away the target, the longer the delay before the icon shows . If you switch views, the icon is gone when you switch back.

ra

lemur · « **Reply #3 on:** January 05, 2002, 06:48:00 PM »

Why is x10 unrealistic?

If your real life vision was limited to 1028x764 you'd be considered legally blind.

With a x10 size increase you get to see the important stuff (i.e. planes) at a resolution equal to human vision.

And while I understand having planes inflate is a little odd, it simulates exactly what human vision does. The end result is like having a 10240 x 7680 pixel monitor, at least for the important stuff.

I'll also throw in two examples from other sims.

In low-end sims (i.e. sims of a few years ago) they inflated the size of all planes by x2 so you could see them properly. This was done in AW (and WB too, I believe) not to mention a whole bunch of other sims.

In high-end sims (i.e. multi megabuck military sims) they track eye movements and project a super high resolution image wherever the pilot was looking while using a lower res image for peripheral vision (one way of effectively making a 10000 x 7500 pixel monitor)

The advantage of getting rid of icons (except for friend or foe, which we definitely need to distinguish a friendly spit from an unfriendly spit) is that players need to actually develop plane identification skills as well as situational awareness.

I think this adds something.
On the downside, inflating planes may just end up looking too weird.

I suppose the same suggestion of reducing icon range (and having icons grow with plane size) and building in a 'script' that does a 'padlock, then zoom in x10, then zoom out' key of some sort would do the same thing.

~Lemur

[ 01-05-2002: Message edited by: lemur ]

sling322 · « **Reply #4 on:** January 05, 2002, 09:28:00 PM »

Terrible ideas.....unless of course you meant to post this in the Combat Theatre part of the message board. I mean, after all, thats where are the 'real' flying is being done, right?

qts · « **Reply #5 on:** January 06, 2002, 06:19:00 AM »

I like this idea: it would also give you an idea of the state of the other aircraft.

Kweassa · « **Reply #6 on:** January 06, 2002, 06:32:00 AM »

We have the zoom capability already via gun zoom. I recently learned u could significantly set the zoom rates up.

Of course, this would be about 4~5 times zoom when it's zoomed to the max, but it is pretty much helpful.

Flossy · « **Reply #7 on:** January 06, 2002, 06:39:00 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Kweassa:
We have the zoom capability already via gun zoom. I recently learned u could significantly set the zoom rates up. Of course, this would be about 4~5 times zoom when it's zoomed to the max, but it is pretty much helpful.

I use the zoom extensively, not just via the gun.... seems to work in any view...