I Condemn The "fudged-up" Icon Settings

[Wotan]

There you go again, changing direction once more.

My opinion is that the new icon may effect the already limited (and mostly insignificant) early bird usage. The plane stats post 'new icons' will either confirm or deny that.

My 'speculation' is no less valid then any one else's.

Don't speak to me about 'assumptions' anyone can read your nonsensical posts and see what 'assumptions' get you.

Belittle you? You seem to think so highly of yourself that you took it upon yourself to hand out unsolicited advice about 'how you do it'. Advice that was not asked for nor part of the discussion. From a look at your career stats it would seem you need help yourself. It turns out you are nothing but at best 'average'. Pointing that out may seem like I  am belittling you but that's how it is when you spew BS.

I guess that brings this thread to a close. If you have anything else you need to say to me just move it over to my squad forum or email. I don't think anyone else cares to read this thread anymore.

[Slash27]

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[Cobra412]

Bye Wotan.  Thanks for making it easy.  Didn't even have to bait the hook.

[Jackal1]

Son, you will  find the hook stuck in your ***.

[Urchin]

Well, I'll say from 1st hand experience that trying to find a fight in the 109F is easy.  All you have to do is fly into 3 or 4 spits and you can get in a fight.  

Getting in a fight with anything else is kind of tough though, since as soon as they see your icon saying "109F" after you evade their first clumsy newb pass, they level out and leave.

[Grits]

Hey, did you guys hear that they are taking the nuts out of Rocky Road ice cream?

[DktrEvil]

I wish HiTech would allow you to change the setting to NO Icons or at least to a minimum distance.

This would make it very interesting and I could set my H2H arena to this setting to give people a feel for what it was really like in battle and how difficult Aircraft Identification was. It would also discipline people not to shoot until they identified the target which would mean they would have to get pretty close before firing.
 
P.S. I hear the reason the Allies won the Air War in Europe was because they had their Icon Range set at 60.

[DamnedRen]

Originally posted by 4510
Is this why in all the WWII movies and pictures.... the pilots are leaning out of their cockpits... trying to hear the other guy's engine?

Nope they have their binoculars stuck to their eyes as they slide back the canopy are trying to see the planes profile at 400 yds.

I'd love to see no icons under two conditions.

1) The tail color "id's" the plane as enemy or some other marking on the wings/fuselage that would say, when you actually see him, he's a knit or ruk or bish.

2) Do away with ZOOM and model the planes to the correct size so you can see them at the correct distance without binocs (zoom).

THEN....

You could also do away with distance icons.

Now that would be realistic!!!!


I'd almost bet it would be like the BOB was in RL. You'd head toward what appeared to be a swarm of enemy planes. You'd get an ID then get in. Within 20 seconds the skies would prolly be cleared of all planes that you could see. Gotta have clouds to hide in too!!!

[hitech]

2) Do away with ZOOM and model the planes to the correct size so you can see them at the correct distance without binocs (zoom).

The planes are all the correct size. Size perception and monitors is a strange thing.Want bigger planes? Then just move your eyes closer to the monitor. The perception of size is only based on other objects of known size, and the speed at which it is travling.

It is realy strange but want somthing to seem to slow down, just make everything bigger in the world, want it to apear faster , make everything smaller.

 A closer representation of normal vission perception is the default gun zoom. But it leaves you with out any perfial vision.

There is no way to display real vesion in computer graphics, The resolution of a monitor is just not capable of displaying objects as they apear in real life.

[tactic]

Put the icons on the good guys (your country), And  no, none, zilch, zip zero  icons , None at all on the bad guys (the other country). No iconie on zee red guys.  That would be interesting!    They just get in my way, throw me off sometimes, because they distract me!     I dont care if i know what im flying against.  as soon as they ripp by you'll know what it is if you know your planes.  If you dont  know them real good by sight (like me),  oh well,  just hope you know how to fly the plane your in.   icon smicon pssft!  
 
Ta da!  There that fixes that!.   done! ** dusts hands off(()))

[DamnedRen]

Rgr that! I know distance from eyeball to screen is as much a player and pixel res size plays a role. However, if you put yer eyeball on the screen and still can't tell the plane type at 400 yds without icon recognition then plane "size" has to play a role.


In other words, if yer standing on the runway in front of a pony at 10 feet do you actually see a 37 ft wingspan? Make that 30 feet away for peripheral vision. If its 25 ft then the planes too small, yes?

thanks for the info btw

[Schatzi]

Originally posted by tactic
Put the icons on the good guys (your country), And  no, none, zilch, zip zero  icons , None at all on the bad guys (the other country). No iconie on zee red guys.  That would be interesting!    They just get in my way, throw me off sometimes, because they distract me!     I dont care if i know what im flying against.  as soon as they ripp by you'll know what it is if you know your planes.  If you dont  know them real good by sight (like me),  oh well,  just hope you know how to fly the plane your in.   icon smicon pssft!  
 
Ta da!  There that fixes that!.   done! ** dusts hands off(()))

Generally, I would say i like this idea... Flew in a Snapshot once, with icons off. Only way to tell a friendly from a con was the historical plane setting. Never knew what it was until up close and personal... or if the friendly on your six wouldnt shoot ya. GREAT FUN!

Now comes the big BUT. Theres also people that just started playing this game. Theyd be lost without at least some form of identification of an enemy plane. I mean it does make a difference if your fighting a Pony or a Zeke. I remeber my first weeks as trying to remeber what can a typhie do? turn with me (Spit)? no. big guns though and fast. and a 109? omg, you never know with those, depends on model. hmmmmm. I dont know if id been able to tell them apart visually. dont think so.
This game already has a difficult learning curve if your new to sims. Dont make it impossible.


As goes for the new icon system. I dont really care. makes not much difference to me. just the first time i saw a seafire up close and personal, i took so long to identify the icon as a spitIIC, that the guy was alredy on my six guns blazing. and that c2 thingi is strange. but does it matter?

[hitech]

Ren All things are realative, They are the correct size in AH.

If you take a 90 deg angle (45 each side of eye), stand 15 ft away from a 30 ft wing span airplane. Each wing will just touch the sides of the angle.

In AH set up the exact same test and each wing would just touch the side of the screen.


HiTech

[DamnedRen]

HiTech
Alright. I got that.

To what extent does pixel size play a role with regard to distance then?

For example, a B-17 is a pixel dot. In rl its a pixel dot and not a small shape of a buff?

It's like being at 4k in yer plane. You look down and without a doubt you see the difference between cars and trucks. You may not be able to correctly ID a particular model. Then again they are beginning to look very much alike . And I bet you could correctly ID a Scion from 4k alt. A shoebox is a shoebox is a showbox at any alt .

I guess what Im asking is why is there so much of a difference between RL and virtual pixels in the game? I remember as we got more pixels jammed in into a given resolution the buffs actual had a sihouette from a llil farther out. However at some distance it still becomes a one pixel dot.

I also remember you could go out an buy a 1024X or even a HiDef projector but really see much difference. If you blew up the picture on a wall or 100 inch screen you just got a bigger dot (one pixel) at the same distance so you really didn't get much benefit until a plane got closer. Even then, you really need to get closer to the wall to get any benefit. I grabbed one from my office and took it home around 6 years ago. If you got the screen size larger than around 4 ft diagonal all you got was huge pixels and no definition.

Whats the solution? Better graphics cards/monitors?  Heck, our old Marine A4M Skyhawk sim built in the '60's had had mirrors and screens that gave you pretty lifelike (and large) images of Mig 17's. And even with high closure rates on a saddle up when that Mig got close he really filled the windscreen. And I really mean BIG!

[DamnedRen]

Opps, forgot one thing....(must be getting old)

There had to be a reason for binocs in the game.

They weren't used to ID planes during WW2. Unless you were a ground based plane spotter. Oh yeah, they could ID a silhouette for some plane at 5-10k using binocs.

Bandaid?

Don't get me wrong anyone can get used to anything. Does that make it right? I regularly show folks how to determine an enemy planes attitude at ranges inside around 2.5k yds. And especially at thoses ranges without icon distances you can only tell silhouette position and not if there is closure or expanding distance. Outside that range we're pretty much back to pixel dots.  Or is there no real fix? Alternatively, if there is nothing wrong...please explain.

IMHO I'd love to be able to get up and only be able to tell enemy planes by their markings and silhouettes,  not icons. While game play would be more difficult the "sense of immersion" would be huge. And with that immersion it's pretty easy to see how the sky would empty completely inside a few minutes as in RL when you really gotta be looking at what that other guys doing.

You'd have to dump radar too. Imagine getting up and actually be looking for the baddies. Wooo Hooo.

Pity an experiment couldn't be attempted in the CT or where ever with just that setup. No DAR, maps would show fields, no plane icons of any kind, just some sort of country marking on nose or tail that could be distinguishable from say 3k, maybe 4k distance. You don't have to go so far as to limit a countries planes to a type (like one side gets german planes and another gets US or Russian planes) just have a country ID color or something.

Thanks again