they have the MiG and Lagg series that we lack, along with the Pe-2.
I like that. Although in AH these days, we wouldn't be able to fill MiG's or LaGG's. These days, to get participation, we seem restricted to mid-late war. Alas.
their weather system includes a multitude of meteorological conditions that we lack. Some servers utilize air spawns so they do exist and radar settings seem to vary amongst the top populated servers, so they have the ability to manipulated too.
Good info.
Singletons.
Drat. The trios make a huge positive difference on fun of flying level bombers in scenarios.
Yes, they have several different icon settings.
That's good.
One of my key gripes about IL2 is that the two most populated servers use no icons. This overall isn't terrible, but nothing is worse than getting smoked by a friendly. It has it's moments, but overall I prefer icons.
Me, too.
Naive folks think no icons are more realistic. But the human eye has far higher ability to notice and resolve things than modern computer screens can provide.
If not obscured in cloud, it is not hard to keep sight of an aircraft, even one with camo paint, in normal prop-plane dogfight ranges (1000 yards and less, say). For example, I went to Air Combat USA once, and had zero problems keeping sight of any aircraft. That was with camo paint on planes and a brown, varied, mottled terrain that the camo would be perfect for. Your eye/brain picks up motion; the colors aren't exact matches; your fovea has gigantic resolution. It was zero problem.
I think it is *more* realistic to have icons on planes in flight sims so that you aren't losing track of planes that you'd have no trouble keeping track of in real life.