You can set the icons how ever you want, even with icons on it the difficulty screen you can cycle icons to how ever you want, even off. I play with no icons but it’s far from "realistic". You have "grey specks" that "disappear" against the terrain at relatively close ranges.
Even with camo your eyes are attracted to movement. Camo wasn’t so much a means to hide you aircraft when it the air but to hide them when parked on the ground.
In fb the best way to spot an enemy is to be below him so he can be seen against the sky. This plays right into the strengths of most vvs planes. Normal bnz style is difficult because its impossible to spot the enemy if you have more then 1k meters alt advantage.
This is great for df servers because there, like in the ah main, its about the fur ball. In Coops or the online wars it’s a clear advantage for the vvs players who can simply fly around at 1500 meters and remain unseen by higher LW planes. When the objectives of the coop or the online mission are to attack ground targets the LW is forced low.
It is this close to >< to being a game killer. In the out of the box release of the original il2 visibility was much better. But folks complained about the dark "dots". Now we suffer through grey specks and inviso planes. The solution is either reduced icons or padlock both are immersion killers for me.
You can adjust dot range (range at which the grey specs becomes "visible") and I wish we could adjust the "dot contrast" or "darkness". At least enough so that a closed plane doesn’t disappear completely against the terrain.
