Thanks for the viewpoints. I'll toss out a few observations and hope that you guys will set me straight if I read you wrong.
First, however, I totally support experimenting with icons in order to achieve something "better" (man, that's subjective; the threads will be 200+ posts
) than what we have now. I don't think range itself is the big problem, however.
Funked: I've flown a bit of TOD. I'll register a complaint about the icons. I think it's merely upping the "difficulty slider" a bit and unrelated to realism. It doesn't generate any more or less tension for me. As Wotan said, it's pretty easy to determine the enemy by the process of elimination. It's more the "why bother" feeling on my part.
It is, if anything, less realistic. I've often sat at one end of a 12,000 foot long runway and watched other aircraft crossing to the gate areas at the other end. I can easily distinguish, both by shape and paint job the difference between companies and between types, even with smaller aircraft like a Canadair RJ and the Embraer ERJ-140. These are small aircraft, much smaller than our bombers.
Searching for the enemy: Right now, icons sometimes make it too easy, agreed. OTOH, in some cases, against a particular background, the present system makes it just about right. There are some situtations in the game where picking out a dot or perhaps a paint scheme is much harder than RL; icons counter this. So, I'd say it goes both ways.
I'd be in favor of changing the "rangefinder" aspect. However, shortening icon ranges doesn't really fix that problem, does it? More like a little bandaid. Range still shows if you are in gun range for any of the guns we have and also at good "merge/lead turn" ranges. (Nobody lead turns at 2K, or if they do, I hope the do it in front of me for a change!)
IFF. Too a degree yes. But OTOH, once again it's a compromise. Because the game limits visual ID by it's very nature. Airplanes are "dots" far longer than they would be in RL. Here's a simple example. I (and my copilots as well) can see the configuration change on MD-88/B-737 size aircraft at a measured two MILES when they lower their gear on approach. How close do you have to be to an AH buff to tell if the gear is up or down? Says a lot about "iff range" to me.
I agree on the formation aspect. Again, is the fix to shorten the icon range or simply remove friendly names and replace it with aircraft type or nothing at all? In combat at a certain range you could probably easily tell if that was a Jug or a -109 but you couldn't tell WHICH Jug or read the call letters. See what I'm geting at?
Wotan, I pretty much agree with your post. I will comment that Icons and monitor size are and have to be related. Some guys are playing on a 15" monitor. Some guys on 17", 19" or 21". Some rich guy is probably playing on a 21" digital flat screen or even a huge 45" digital flat screen TV. Aren't icons a way to level that playing field somewhat?
The "fade ins" aren't too bad. IMO, WW2OL took too long to fade in, however. The other thing that bugged me was that once you "ID'd" a guy, even if it was your wingie just 400 yards away in "route", if you looked away for just a second it took the same long time to re-fade in. That's kinda bogus, I think. Would be fun to experiment with those, however.
Kweassa, I've got really got no comments on your information because mainly it's opinion. You find "no/reduced icons" more fun, etc. Fine with me.... as long as you aren't waving the "more realism" flag.