The DCS F4U

[AKIron]

I don't think this is an appropriate place to discuss your personal life.

Jet-boy.

And if you are setting up a server similar to how AH works where aircraft are shared between sides, you really have no choice right?  I guess if you could enforce skins but that is insufficient as most id was by silhouette.  So how would I tell a friendly P-51 in a fight from an enemy P-51?

A friendly P-51 won't shoot at ya.

In that rare occasion when a captured plane was used against it's builders the paint scheme with symbols identified the plane's current allegiance. Germans were fond of the Swastika.

[CptTrips]

A friendly P-51 won't shoot at ya.

In that rare occasion when a captured plane was used against it's builders the paint scheme with symbols identified the plane's current allegiance.

I disagree, but the beauty is, just set your mission or your server the way you want it.  As we both pointed out, all this is configurable both in SP and MP at the server level depending on the admins preferences.

Boutique Sim'ing.  I just coined a phrase.

[Oldman731]

It's not easy to spot other planes a few miles away in real life.

Most absolutely true.  Even when ATC tells you where to look, it's tough to spot them until you're quite close.  Over a popular VOR it can get scary, when planes suddenly appear right above (or below) you.

- oldman

[Eagler]

HT even has the best icons in AH compared to IL2, WT and DCS imo..

The ones in dcs are the worst..blurry crap at best..

Icons work, it's the distance they are set to that makes it..

As in MNM and now world at war on Thursday night, the lowered distance with the delay in radar makes a huge difference in game play for the better!

MA would be a difference experience with just these two minor changes..add in an altitude of like 500ft for NOE attacks under radar and it's a much better game imo..

Eagler

[hazmatt]

There's nothing like getting a missile up the tail pipe in the dark when you had no idea there was a Mig on your 6.

Not sure about DCS but this happens to me often in my A4 in WT. The TWI is not very useful against heat seekers in my experience and  I've gotten paranoid enough that I start popping flares any time I SEE that there's an enemy behind my 3/9 line that's anywhere close! The problem with flares is it give away your position to all the other enemy in the area and most of the time I never see the bastid that missled me. I have to go look at the replay to figure out what happened and usually it's some jackwagon going wide open like 5 feet off the deck that I never saw.

[hazmatt]

A friendly P-51 won't shoot at ya.

In that rare occasion when a captured plane was used against it's builders the paint scheme with symbols identified the plane's current allegiance. Germans were fond of the Swastika.

I have a premium plane that I paid $3 for and it's a P-47 on the German tech tree. It's painted yellow on the bottom and on the tail and has German markings.

[AKIron]

Yes but that was one on one. 

Of course that was just to practice the basics. Apparently the army and airlines don't teach air combat maneuvering. We also do missions facing 4 Mig-29s or Su-27s in the F-16/F-18/F-15E. Ace level of course. Day and night. Pincer seems to be the most effective in a 2 on 4. I think the enemy can see us at night same as day, same as labels on. Could be wrong. That puts us at a significant disadvantage. I use moose to respawn the enemy at random locations.

[AKIron]

Airline pilots don't fight each other but they do the weather.

https://x.com/i/status/1935860147315712147

[DmonSlyr]

So far the VF81 Damned WW2 Server is the closest I've seen to AH. It has AI though since there's not usually anyone in there to populate both sides, but it's possible. No other arena I've been into has icons and players on the map to know where the action is and can get into combat faster. Many times on the other servers, you fly around for so long to a marked location for an hour an still may not see anyone, or they come out of no where as you get complacent not looking around and end your sortie with a quick cannon burst. It can be pretty tough flying lone wolf. Im also finding it very challenging to enter into a furball and figure out enemy vs friendly to set up a pass. The spits are pretty easy to identify, but p51 vs 109 is still tough from a distance. I must say that its very much easier to escape the fight since you can almost "dissappear" after about 1k away if they lose sight on you.

[CptTrips]

HT even has the best icons in AH compared to IL2, WT and DCS imo..

I can't speak for IL2 but AH's icons are superior to DCS'.

But DCS does have them and they can be enabled on the server and they can be configure different ways that the started out of the box way you normally see. 
I don't need the player name, DOB, height, and what he had for breakfast, I'm satisfies with a simple colored symbol like a small circle or something.

[Edit]

The best implementation of icons I remember ironically was in AW, IMHO.

I always liked how they had very abbreviated icons. but the icons were rendered at the top edge of the display and you made a mental translation down the x pixel column to the actual in-game object.  That gave you the little bit of a hint that you needed to make of the fact that all sides had all aircraft and that current technology can't render at real world resolutions, yet kept the icon from visually cluttering your center of view.

You'd think that would be a nightmare to translate those positions in a dogfight, but it was amazingly intuitive. Very quickly you brain just works it out and it is second nature.  Maybe one of the old ones has a screenshot.  Even those had more info than I need.  I just need a color symbol for friendly or enemy.  So like rendering a simple blue triangle vs a red square icon along the top display edge.  That would be my perfect solution if I had the source code. 

[Spikes]

IL2's icons are terrible, and from my limited experience hosting a server it's not really configurable at all.

[hazmatt]

So far the VF81 Damned WW2 Server is the closest I've seen to AH. It has AI though since there's not usually anyone in there to populate both sides, but it's possible. No other arena I've been into has icons and players on the map to know where the action is and can get into combat faster. Many times on the other servers, you fly around for so long to a marked location for an hour an still may not see anyone, or they come out of no where as you get complacent not looking around and end your sortie with a quick cannon burst. It can be pretty tough flying lone wolf. Im also finding it very challenging to enter into a furball and figure out enemy vs friendly to set up a pass. The spits are pretty easy to identify, but p51 vs 109 is still tough from a distance. I must say that its very much easier to escape the fight since you can almost "dissappear" after about 1k away if they lose sight on you.

Can I check this out with the free planes that come with DCS or would I have to buy one to fly around here? I think one of the planes is the TF-51 which I don't think has guns but that would be fine if I could just get in and fly around to check it out.

[AKIron]

There are free third party WWII mods but the server would have to be configured to all ow them. Most of them are probably built on paid mods and so may require you to own those.

[AKIron]

Just do a free 2 week trial.

[hazmatt]

I was reading that a 50% off sale usually happens end of June beginning of July. Any truth to that? I'm guessing the easiest to fly WWII plane might be the spitfire?