Icons

[big-mo]

S! InCrypt   Well said. 

Not a huge fan of this data point either, but don't want to limit the Chiefs from tinkering.

Hang in there Daddog!

Cheers,

 -Mo

[Zoney]

Do NOT TELL ME WHAT CAN’T BE DONE!

I am legally blind, with 20/400 + vision corrected (with glasses)! I cannot drive, I have to use a 22” screen and sit 12 inches from it in order to fly. To see a non/low icon dot I have to move my face to within 1” of the screen (I know I’m too close when my nose touches). To take a shot on a target 400 Meters away I have to use the Zoom function so the piper fills the screen and I still have to lean forward from time to time. But I do it all anyway.
Is it more difficult to fly without the crutch of icons? YES! Is it next to impossible to determine range and closure? Absolutely! Do I fair better with Icons set at longer (3k+) distances. Sure thing! Would I like to see the Icon ranges set to back to 3k (IMHO about what they should be for a 20/20 pilot)? Your damd Right. But will I ever take my ball and go home because the game is not what I like. NOT A CHANCE IN HELL. It’s a commitment gentleman, and we’ve got to stand tall. The CM’s will try different stuff as they become available. And you can’t judge success or failure of something from only one data point. I think we can ride this one out – now that EVERYONE is fully aware of the settings change – and see how it goes for the rest of the frame.

This month I have volunteered to plan the missions for my squad, and Frame 1 was my very first ever. The professional military pilots of my squad have told me that my mission brief package was one of the most professional ever, and my only lament was that because I missed the Icon setting change my wonderful plan was not fully realized. I attribute the fact that I missed the Icon setting change, and my inability to infer its consequences, to my lack of experience in this facet of the FSO. But I will NOT make that mistake this FSO. I expect there to be a lot of NOE raids due to the <500 no icon rule (a bit generous I think), but I will take that into account when I plan the next mission.

And remember, the less you have the better you become.

-- We who have done so much, with so little, are now fully qualified to do anything with nothing at all.

<<<S>>> Brillant sir, well put.

Uncorrected my vision is 20/400 so without my contact lens I know exactly what you are dealing with.  Pretty damn sure I couldn't do it.

  Your humble servant.


Work with what you got, learn from it............

"In the land of the blind, a one eyed man would be king!"

[ImADot]

Short icons are part of the FSO experience.  Get separated from your group and the anxiety goes way up while you're alone and trying to find everyone.  Even more so while in enemy airspace.  It makes you pay attention more and fly smarter to ensure that you either don't get separated in the first place, or can communicate and read the map to find them again.

Icons at 3k across the board makes the most sense, but I'm there to fly and do my best with whatever plane/mission I'm given and the settings that the designer thinks fits his design.

[snakeplissken]

My turn.  Hopefully the final word.  First, Thank You for all the nice comments about the people who spend their time setting up and running FSO.  Your praise and the fun we see from the people who do get to fly is what makes it all worth it!    Several new things were tried in this FSO, not just icons.  There is the low icon off deck, tower radar, fog settings, no alt cap and a pre-dawn launch with a X3 multiplier.  You launch at 0500 and land 6 hours later with only 2 hours passing on your clock.  We even changed the color of the sky so you would have a great dawn.  I didn't see any screen shots.  For those who were "surpised" about the icon settings... shame on you.  It was in the objectives.  They have been posted for several weeks.  Finally, we almost never change settings in the middle of the frame.  Daddog does not "own" FSO but he is the designer, I am just the builder.  These guys agonize for weeks if not months on how to design a frame.  This event orginally called for Spit 8's but they were ditched becuase no Spit 8's flew out of England.  Did  you know that?  No one experimented with you guys.  He wanted to build an FSO where surviving gave the best score.  If I posted his stats I would be fired.  But prior to Frame 1 Daddog posted on the private board the survivabilty statistics for the last 6 FSOs.  This is something Daddog worked at.  Please fly.  Please try to have fun.  It's FSO, it is suppose to be a little unpredictiable.  What a surprise, low visibility over England.....  <S> Snake.

[68Hawk]

I think it's kind of funny that this has gone all the way to conspiracy theories.  I think the level of passion exhibited here shows that a lot of people love these events.  I'll take that to mean the FSO team is really doing something right!

With respect to the icon settings:
I'm not going to comment on future setups, as I'm not on the FSO team and that's not my lane.  I will say that it's a little disheartening to see people unwilling to try new things for a couple weeks.  Flying with low icon settings takes some getting used to, especially when we've become so used to having that visual queue.  I had a really hard time last week, and even got hit by a German I never saw coming.  Luckily I didn't take any damage.  It was a good lesson in SA for me.  I liked the challenge.

Regardless of your position on situations that may arise in events, please know that all CM's take as their main priority the quality of their events and the enjoyment of all attendees.  We do take all suggestions very deeply to heart, but at the same time, demands and accusations disrupt the creative process.  We strive to bring everyone quality and dynamic events, and 99% of the time we deliver very solidly.  We ask only your patience and constructive feedback when we mistake a setting here and there, or when the best laid plans don't seem to survive the first engagement.

Gotta go preflight my bird for tonight.  I'm gonna need all the luck I can get!

See you in the air!
 

[Drive]

For me FSO represents flying as you would have in the real thing, if only a little.

In the past with 6.0k settings I might have furballed or turned a little more that perhaps prudent. With the new settings I curtailed that greatly, it was just too risky and ill advised. As a 109 G2 pilot I stayed fast, whether above, below or smack dab in the middle of the fight. At one point I had 6 enemy fighters three to four thousand feet above me, totally clueless to my presence. I knew who they were just by looking at the dot and color scheme, I informed country channel too. This type of dynamic has not happened much in FSO, perhaps not at all until recently.

I loved it....

When I know what type of aircraft to expect I can easily pick out enemy type well before 6k icon range. What I cant do is enter a turn fight and keep track of all the dots, memorizing who is who. The icons are a crutch in this type of fight, they let you keep track of cons. I was around many, many cons at times tonight and was often left alone due to identification. Knowing who was who without icons allowed me to be very aggressive at times when I got into the bomber stream. As a technical pilot, I was at home, being a smart flier allowed me to use the icons in my favor.

I think in the end people that show success under this format will be the ones who adapt and learn, as with anything. If you want the MA thats fine, but the short icons literally caused me to subscribe again. After losing most of my electronics to a lightning strike I seriously doubted I would ever fly AH again, due to cost alone. However, after reading the forums a bit and seeing this I dusted off the old X52 I have and plopped onto my chair. I hope they stay this way, let the MA be the MA and let FSO be about challenging flying and fighting.

Thanks to the 367th for letting me fly with them as well...

Strip

[TequilaChaser]

For me FSO represents flying as you would have in the real thing, if only a little.

 As a 109 G2 pilot I stayed fast, whether above, below or smack dab in the middle of the fight. At one point I had 6 enemy fighters three to four thousand feet above me, totally clueless to my presence. I knew who they were just by looking at the dot and color scheme, I informed country channel too. This type of dynamic has not happened much in FSO, perhaps not at all until recently.

I loved it....

When I know what type of aircraft to expect I can easily pick out enemy type well before 6k icon range. What I cant do is enter a turn fight and keep track of all the dots, memorizing who is who. The icons are a crutch in this type of fight, they let you keep track of cons. I was around many, many cons at times tonight and was often left alone due to identification. Knowing who was who without icons allowed me to be very aggressive at times when I got into the bomber stream. As a technical pilot, I was at home, being a smart flier allowed me to use the icons in my favor.

I think in the end people that show success under this format will be the ones who adapt and learn, as with anything. If you want the MA thats fine, but the short icons literally caused me to subscribe again. After losing most of my electronics to a lightning strike I seriously doubted I would ever fly AH again, due to cost alone. However, after reading the forums a bit and seeing this I dusted off the old X52 I have and plopped onto my chair. I hope they stay this way, let the MA be the MA let the no icons  AvsA be the no icons AvsA and let FSO be about challenging flying and fighting with squads against squads.
Thanks to the 367th for letting me fly with them as well...

Strip

I hope you don't mind, Strip, Sir...... but I fixed/edited your post quoted above...... you forgot the AvsA  

regarding the blue quoted text above: I have what I think is a fairly High Performing PC for AH, and can max out everything even using high res 1024 textures and keep near solid 70 FPS....... I be damned if I can identify what I am fighting over 1.2K yards out  barely at 1,000 yards and no icons on....

I want to know what I have to do to see these planes and identfy them at 1.5K or 2K or 3K out without icons..... and my eyesight is last tested 20/15 right eye 20/20 left eye a year ago....... a dang pixel dot on a PC is not the same as real life........ so why do people claim that it is MORE REALISTIC without icons, seriously......

the game is unrealistic in this comparison to real life when I can sit a mile away fromt he airport and tell what is taking off and landing, or see different military planes flying 10,000 feet to 20,000 ft above me and can easily identify what they are....

that is why the game has icons.......



I personally have adjusted to accept the fact that the CT ( er now called AvsA ) arena will prob never be what I once loved, and will fly there when I can not find anything better to do..... but last night's FSO for me completely was not worth even rushing to log in to the game to play........ to me I saw more gang type flying and more fight avoiding than I have ever experienced in an FSO..... in the past what 9 years??? 8 years??? FSO has been here.......

10 planes diving on 2 or 3 is not what I want to experience in FSO nor in any Scenario that might be in the near future with the no icon enemy settings and lowered friendly icon settings........

it was not 1K.. it was either enemy showed up eventually with icon at 1,000  800 or 400........ sometimes being right on top of the enemy and only 200 of their high 5 or lw 7 and the icon was not even showing at times.....

3K max for friendlys and say 2K icon for enemys would be 1 million times better...... my PERSONAL thoughts.....

but the last couple of frames with these lowered icon settings have been some of the worse FSo's I have ever participated in

I hope the FSO CM Staff think hard about this, and hopefully decide to adjust the icons back to what they have always been...... let each event, each different Arena, etc. have it's on uniqueness and stop messing with good things...... hate to see more people driven away from what they were once happy with ( <--- another personal "experienced" view )


Thanks for all the work these FSO CM Staff and the CiC's do for putting on this event......  

[wgmount]

I could see Icons below 500 ft, I swear, in both frames. I had to be within 1k of the enemy but I could still see the icon below 500ft. <shrug>


It does strain my eyes to fly without them though. Probably couldn't stand 2 hrs without a very bad headache without them.

[Vulcan]

Didn't realize dot dar was on in the tower dar either. That was a bit of a surprise.

[FiLtH]

        I chose to fly Lancs lastnight because I didnt want to deal with the icon HS.

[AKP]

I think after the second week of these settings I can draw these conclusions based on what I have seen and experienced while playing:

1)  While there may be other bandits nearby, everyone seems to focus on the ones close enough to show an icon... creating 3, 4, and 5 on one scenarios... when normally there would be more 1 v 1 and 2 v 1 combat going on.  All you have to do to escape is get far enough away from your opponent so he loses your icon, and he will switch to another target.

2) The level of detail some have mentioned that allows you to ID a con without an icon at ranges of 2 and 3 K is only available using "zoom"... which is not realistic either.  So we are trading an automatic non realistic feature that allows us to ID aircraft, for a manual feature which allows us to ID aircraft.

3) My personal survivability has increased in this FSO... I rarely land when flying fighters during a frame... but have easily been able to break off when low on fuel or ammo and make it back to base with no trouble the last 2 frames.  However, I have noticed others in my squad that usually DO make it back have gone down quickly.  So I cant say that survivability as a whole has been effected by the current icon settings or not based on what I have seen.

While I have enjoyed frames 1 & 2... it seems the level of excitement, duration, and the intensity of combat has just not been there as much as they usually are in FSO.


Unfortunately I will be away for frame 3, so I wont get to finish out the FSO for this month.  Good luck to everyone in Frame 3, and I will see you all for August's FSO!  

[WWhiskey]

I worried more about kill shooter this last frame than ever before,, when I found an enemy con, everyone flew in on my tail instead of the cons, to get an idea were the bad con was!
this seems to me to be the worst part of differing Icons!
 I did have a better time of it in frame two, but it was still mostly just trying to figure out who was who,, the only way to tell if there was a bad guy near you was if the ack on the field was firing!
I survived this frame simply by doing what the enemy did last frame, as soon as a bad guy got on my six, a hard break back into him and strait to the deck cleared me every time, he could not see me and therefor did not wish to try and pursue risking his own hide to my friendlies!I in turn lost sight of him and was hard pressed to re acquire the target!
It was fun, the few seconds of action,, but the rest of the time, was as nerve racking as grind teeth!  
for me it was not a fun time had by all!
Just my perspective on the matter,, hope this helps the next  FSO planners

i will be out next week  not because of Icons tho  gotta go play poker
No Limit Hold'Em Tournament
$20,000 Guaranteed

[jimson]

I want to know what I have to do to see these planes and identfy them at 1.5K or 2K or 3K out without icons..... and my eyesight is last tested 20/15 right eye 20/20 left eye a year ago....... a dang pixel dot on a PC is not the same as real life........ so why do people claim that it is MORE REALISTIC without icons, seriously......

the game is unrealistic in this comparison to real life when I can sit a mile away fromt he airport and tell what is taking off and landing, or see different military planes flying 10,000 feet to 20,000 ft above me and can easily identify what they are....

Tell ya what, I'll concede that no icons isn't necessarily more realistic, but glowing red icons isn't realistic either.

Some things about no icons are realistic in that you can lose sight of a plane in the clouds and you can lose sight of a low bandit that blends into the terrain below.

What would be more realistic?

Maybe dim transparent icons that blend into ground clutter and totally disappear behind clouds?

[TequilaChaser]

Tell ya what, I'll concede that no icons isn't necessarily more realistic, but glowing red icons isn't realistic either.

Some things about no icons are realistic in that you can lose sight of a plane in the clouds and you can lose sight of a low bandit that blends into the terrain below.

What would be more realistic?

Maybe dim transparent icons that blend into ground clutter and totally disappear behind clouds?

you are correct, neither are realistic.. the reason the Icons are in the game is to supply the AH Player with some type of Aircraft Recognition in game, since it is not easy to visualize what one might easily see/recognize in real life vs what they see on a computer screen a a pixel

oh, and I have already conceded to flying the AvsA as it is now, and have not really argued about it for a good while..... just wish when I had time to fly and might want to fly in there, that someone would be in there...... but it has always been that way, except for those "set" times that have always been set up before amongst that arenas partcipants since the CT/AvsA inception.....


but my main concern was why am I not able to VISUALLY identify those 4K, 3K, 2K dots on my PC ( unless ZOOMING in at the maybe 2.5K dot only at times ) but others claim they can.... I want to know the secret or the tip needed to identfy those UFO dots that far out. or do I need a 42" monitor or what?....... hell, if others can do it, I want to be able to do it too..... everyone should be able to do it, if everyone can not, then I see no reason to punish the ones who are unable to IDENTFY  pixel Dots that  a few others are able to identify..  

is one reason I hated night time.... people would figure out they could turn their Gamma way up and it would still be like daylight.... man, I really racked up like 10 kills in a M3 carrying troops back then on planes trying to shoot me....... only if they knew I could see them clear as day and they could not see me as clearly..... btw..... only did that one time when I was told how everyone was able to shoot planes down or incoming GV's.....

if Night Time does come back, I would wish that HTC would put some type of "Gamma Adjustment Block" in the arena settings to disallow game players to game the game.......  

  jimson

[gyrene81]

TC, I've learned to look for little visual cues in the short/no icon settings, practicing offline helps. I don't think I have as good a computer as you have, but I have a 22inch monitor and 20/15-20/10 vision with glasses. Since the arguments about visual acuity in AH started popping up in the no icon discussions, I've done a lot of "self testing" and some testing of people I come into contact with daily of various ages. Using a car to verify distances from objects, it's amazing what some people can't actually see from a mile out. Obviously sitting on the ground is not the same as being 5000 feet in the air but you can get a general idea of what can actually be seen as distance increases. At 1/4 mile (1320 feet) on level ground few people can read the license plate on a car.

In AH I use the zoom function (about 3/4 default setting) because the effect is close to what we do when trying to focus our vision on an object that is far away. Somewhere near the 3.5k+ range, enemy aircraft tend to be darker colored dots than friendlies. Between 3k and 2k the default skins kick in, but you still can't tell exactly what it is unless it's a bomber and even then it's not easy. Around 1.5k and closer whatever skin the player chose in the hangar kicks in. No matter what you do you're still going to find yourself chasing friendlies at times, and you're going to miss seeing someone flying low, but learning what to look for in the non-realistic graphics of the game can help. Doing a lot of experimenting offline can help.