No Icons

[SAS_KID]

wouldn't it feel more real if icons were off. I meen its not like the MA where every country flies the same planes. It is set planes set country so it would allow us to work on our idetification skills and make suprise attacks a lot easier and make sure you have situational awareness all the time. PLus, be interesting in a dogfight.

[E25280]

Icon range for enemy cons is already shorter than in the MA, so this answers part of your request.  The problem I see in turning them off entirely is the difference between "computer perception" and "real perception".  IRL you could identify a member of your wing a good distance away due to the paint schemes on the aircraft, and an enemy plane much, much farther.  In AH, with the same is not the case.  I can't see my squad's marks on a plane unless I am less than 200 feet away.  d1000 away all the planes look the same on my pathetic screen.  So IMO, turning off the icons would hurt gameplay and actually make it less realistic.

[storch]

when I played IL-2 I played in the full realism arenas and in time you became accustomed to no icon.  it is indeed far more immersive but in IL-2 the graphics are infinitely better than in AH

[Platano]

At times I play with friendly icons only.. so any dot i see in the air with no icon is ENM...  Havnt tried playing with no icons though...a furball can get confusing

[storch]

it makes for very close fights and you become adept at aircraft recognition.

[Krusty]

Only, your human eye can see 1000x what the pixels can generate on your screen.

I flew a no-icons fight with p51Bs vs 109G2s(6s??) a while back. We had a real setup. 4-man wings with no dar and no icons fighting each other. Everything looked exactly the same. I found what I thought was an enemy 109 and manuvered on its arse and saddled up -- it wasn't until I crossed d200 that I even began to see the BRIGHT invasion stripes all over it (signifying a p51B).

Long story short: no icons doesn't work. Never will. Not with pixel-based technology.

[Panzzer]

And there's no option available to turn icons off from the host side. Everyone should do it themselves, which I fear wouldn't happen all the time... And the guys using 1600x1200 with higher details would have better chances of seeing and recognizing the planes than someone with a lower-end computer (800x600 still supported in AH?).

But we've been having some squad nights in CT (AvA) or DA with no icons, has been pretty intense and fun.

[SAS_KID]

ok plan is to get everyone to buy 72" plasma screen moniters and get super video cards for our comps and play so we can see each other as well as the human eye.

[Krusty]

Even with the items you suggest saskid, you'd not even see a FRACTION of what the human eye can see. I believe HT said that when you zoom in on a plane, that's more representative of the detail an eye can see. The zoom is so that you can still look around (peripheral vision) when not focusing on a specific plane.

I live under a small airport landing pattern. I get small jets and props passing just over my house all the time. You would be amazed at the detail I can see even when they are several thousand feet up. In AH you get a dot with two dashes (wings) at the same distance -- or worse, just a dot!

No comparison.

[BigMax]

I've done quite a bit o' Squad V Sqad stuff with ICONs off...  It's definitely a different game - you can actually use cover and shadow.

I'd like to see it one day a week or so....  Any more frequently would probably run most of the newer players off.