Range icons - pool

[Lucchini]

Thx you all for posting.
I think we are going out of the subject of my post:

" no RANGE icons" and not "no icons"

In this arena plane model icon is really necessary as everybody is free to fly the plane he likes best.
Agree with popeye "Definitely need some sort of rate-of-closure indicator": it'd be color depth of plane model icon or something else.

Bye

Lucchini

[Virage]

I used to think 'no icons' would be too unrealistic given the limitations of the monitor/graphics etc.  After spending time in a non virtual cockpit, the experience of no tags is similar to the real thing.  

Spotting aircraft in the sky is an Active, rarely passive, process.  Planes don't jump out at you from the corner of your eye.  If you are not actively searching you will often never see them.  Pilots are trained to follow specific search patterns.  Once spotted it takes a second or more to study the plane to discern heading, speed, closure, etc.  It is common to have planes dissappear and reappear depending on the planes aspect to you and lighting conditions.  

Another aspect of flying is that your eyes are either in or out of your cockpit.  You can not follow an aircraft and look at your airspeed indicator at the same time.  It may be a quick glance but you can't do both simultaneously.

[pbirmingham]

Originally posted by Lucchini
Hi all,
I strongly believe that deleting the range icons will  improve the fun in the arena, requesting greater SA, avoiding spray and pray and 800yds kills and providing closer dogfights.
At least range icons could disappear below 1k distance.

Do you agree?

Lucchini

Alt-I, Alt-I, Alt-I will delete those pesky icons, I think.

[Tub-o-lard]

I'm still VERY new to this game, and I have no problem with the way the icons work at the moment in general. The only exception is the way night is handled. I think that having the icons the way they are makes night a waste of time.

Would it be possible to slowly reduce the distance the icons appear at when the sun starts going down? Then for the 10 -15 minutes that it is actually dark they could be 1/2 the distance they are during the day, 3K at altitude or 1.5k at ground level.

This would make the night time something that is tactically useful, especially for bombers.

[womba]

Being a pesky 17 buff pilot range icons are useful when flying without a gunner. Which is most of the time. Good gunners , that shoot better than you do, are hard to find

But it would be nice if they disapeared under 1k so that , visually, the target is less obscure & there is less distraction.

Damn now I have to put up with spit xiv's at 25-30k.
 Bad enough running into spit ix's at that alt that still fly like they are at 15k. Although they are easy kills as a rule

[illo]

AKS wulfe..no need to flame me.

I think seeing details of plane is not so important for overall immersion.
Icons let me notice all without working on it. I don't consider it fun neither realistic. I understand your wiev and i have heard those reasons tens of times in similar discussions. Monitor doesn't give real view...ofcourse not. But AH world is very simple also. I have no trouble identifying planes far away without icons...i make mistakes, but hardly can make any if i see red neon tag jump on my screen...not very possible to missidentify anything. And real life even WW2 aces misidentified aircraft even at gunnery ranges, even friendly fire incidents happened due to new camos etc.

Btw. i played WB with 2d and 15 inch monitor. So thats not any excuse. And finally i was never suggesting no-icons for AH main arena.

I have thought about this issue many times before and i stick to my view.
And i understand your points very well too. I just don't agree.

[AKSWulfe]

I wasn't flaming you Illo, it's that when you try to make statements based on 2nd hand information and pass it off as "correct", then it becomes more of a white lie than anything. No one gets hurt, but it just isn't true.

No harm done, I just wanted to set the record straight. I actually didn't mean to flame you, sorry if it came off that way... I think it was b4 I got my coffee.
-SW