Artificially restricting view distances is the oldest method of gaining performance for a game. Aces High only draws what it has to. Every player controlled object is drawn within a 17 mile radius of your location, even if it is only one pixel. We are also very aggressive with the LOD's. Apparently, we do it so well most people are not aware of it.
War Thunder's graphic engine is really nothing special. What they have is a ton of artwork (6+ GB), combined with very short vis ranges combined with a limited number of players. Not hard to do really. Even the clouds are very pixelated as if they are stretching textures rather than using particles. Keep in mind, as developers, we tend to look beyond what a typical player will see. It is a neat game, with good artwork. No doubt about that.
They have made some good choices for their game. They have managed to draw in the arcade crowd or the twitch player, as some would prefer to be known. It is a different game for a different player. The arcade crowd is not going to like Aces High. Due to our open ended game play many gamers will not care for it either.
By the way, the P38 flight model is 100% based on test data. Just FYI. Pilot anecdote has no place in flight modeling. The conjecture and opinion about our flight models, in this thread, has mostly missed the mark. How any game would model flight is always going to breach the intellectual property of the product/service. Suffice it to say, do not feel bad if you cannot figure out how any game does it. After all, we have had over 20 years (Warbirds, Aces High) to get it right.
Some of you will, no doubt, make some gross assumptions about what I just said, and those assumptions will more than likely be incorrect. For instance, I did not say we are perfect, or that everyone else does it wrong, and so on.
War Thunder has done a great job marketing their product. My hat is off to them for that.
