I've flown in FSO with the reduced icons before and now the really short icons and also in AvA with no icons at all. Either setup hasn't really bothered me personally but I can see how some might have issue with this arrangement. Only problem I have is with my computer and I can see where others may have a similar problem. With my old jalopy P4 rig I can crank up everything except detailed terrain. Oh I can toggle it on and things work fine mostly(it's what I might call eyesight to the blind!) but with this odd nervous tick that I find makes the game unplayable so I disable detailed terrain. With that off everything--especially the ground--becomes inherently dark. So picking up other planes--friendly or otherwise without icons becomes a bit problematic in a look down situation or if as Friday night's frame was--at dawn and inherently dark by design. (If I pop into AvA and I see it's dawn or dusk I don't even bother.) Boosting gamma helps but the cost is it makes dots harder to pick out at a distance against the sky--they're more lighter grey than black. With detailed terrain on it's as if the lights have been turned on and you can pick out the plane shapes a lot more easily at a greater distance and can muck more easily track a target across the ground. Even so it doesn't rival human eyesight. Someday we'll all have rigs that make the world look that way but we're not there yet.
Don't want this to degenerate into a PC help thread so let's not go there. I think I know what's going on and I'm on it. Just don't have the bucks to lay out for all new stuff and that's what really I need to do. Meanwhile, I'm souping up my old rig as best I can. Baby steps. I'm closer to max playability for this game which is fine for me as it's the only one I have time for. The point is if you don't have the most up to date hardware chances are you're going to be at a disadvantage as I am. I'm quite sure there's more out there like me who have a similar problem. In air combat being at a visual disadvantage is just not a recipe for survival. Pretty much why you don't see any RL fighter pilots with eyes like mine.
