SharpeXB

Sure within reason. The rivet counting stuff is sorta counterproductive. Like make a bug report and move on…

Ok so 1. I don’t think most people can tell the difference between a 1940s British or German train. 2. Nobody noticed, maybe. 3. Legit. 4. Again not sure who cares. 5. Never noticed this but legit. Maybe make an actual bug report. 6. See 5 above. Go figure it’s a flight sim and not a train sim trains are fun to shoot though, I’d like to see bigger explosions from them like in the gun cam films

The level of fidelity in DCS means it can’t be a “battle” sim. It’s a study sim and really about the aircraft themselves. So it’s a Spitfire LF Mk. IX game, not a Battle of Britain game. It would be impossible to create a Battle of Britain sim game with all the historically accurate planes for that scenario all modeled to full fidelity. That would take 40 years to make and cost $1,000. But you can fly your 1944 Spitfire in reasonably authentic scenarios against 109 K-4s even though these probably never attacked London. Nothing wrong with that, really. Just use your imagination.

The simple math is that it takes about 2 years to develop a DCS module. Go figure how long it would take to fill out an historical roster of 20+ aircraft. So enjoy what we have.

Well DCS is a bit of a sandbox, you can’t be such a stickler about accuracy here.

How so? Check out the DLC campaigns like the P-47 Wolfpack. It’s very good and uses the Channel map.

Auto at least prevents the easy exploit in the above example. Honestly when you look at the settings, what this does isn’t so profound. It just assigns the 1 or 4 (2x2) pixel dot based upon the selected resolution. The dot system as a whole isn’t a great solution but at least Auto is a fair compromise and keeps a lid on the exploits. Yes but as it turned out this didn’t work as well or as easily as was assumed. This has taken over a year to fiddle around with no ideal solution to be found. Putting this out with a bunch of user settings seems like an admission of defeat to me. I hate to bring up other games but the other WWII CFS game managed to do this very well without resorting to user settings. This topic seemed to be really dormant for a long time following the Model Enlargement mess. Perhaps because the outcome of that was a dot which could be seen across the entire map at lower resolutions. I guess that makes this an improvement.

Not necessarily, the most popular server has this set to Auto This new feature has only been around for about a year. What did people do before this? Seems like many people were able to play just fine. Honestly the old system was even more exploitable which was the impetus for creating a new one. I suppose that’s a “win”

It’s certainly possible to be fair within reason. Simply enforcing Auto mode prevents the easy exploit above.

Well certainly for SP anyone can choose to do whatever they want. I get the impression that the server owners are in a bind thinking that giving everyone choices gets them the most players. We’ll see how that goes. Currently the most popular PVP server has this forced to Auto. If you recall the Model Enlargement feature, one of the reasons that didn’t work out was likely because nobody online could agree on a setting.

I can’t imagine there are too many people who actually like seeing the giant squares. Unfortunately there are probably enough people who don’t care what the game looks like if it gives them an advantage. I don’t think players want to have to choose between having a good looking realistic game or being on par with others exploiting the system. So yes they might have access to it but not want to be forced to use it. It’s not being ultra competitive to just want a fair game. That was supposed to be the purpose of the new system. Instead it just reintroduced an exploit similar to the old one.

Yes. Most of the servers aren’t enforcing it though. I think GS is the only one that is and has it locked on Auto.

The trouble is it’s possible to exploit the system in multiplayer then. The previous system could be exploited by lowering the resolution too so we’re back to square one in that regard. I trust that ED will keep working on the Auto mode to get it right. Then they can discard the manual setting. The best solution is one that’s fair and realistic across the board and not exploitable.

In 1080x1920 with the 2 pixel dot selected, a high aspect MiG-21 (which should be hard to see) is easily visible as a giant square at 5-6 miles. PS So just finishing this fight without the spotting dots, here's where I require this guy at about 4 miles, it's very challenging with small aircraft like these MiGs and you have to work at acquiring them, with the spotting dots this would just be no effort at all and not very fun or realistic IMO

DCS is like a one step at a time kinda thing. Jumping right into a campaign especially an advanced one would be getting in deep very quickly. The thing about the sim being so complex is that it makes missions, which in other games might seem too simple, actually challenging and rewarding. So it’s not necessary to go with full campaign in order to get a lot out of the game. Some of the campaigns are still challenging for experienced players too. I am amazed myself given the fact that I also have such limited time for games in general, how much I have accomplished in DCS over the years. Just one step at a time.

The trouble with the player adjustable size setting is that it allows everyone to just select the largest dot regardless of their hardware. The whole idea of having a new system seems to have been to remove the exploit built into the old one. Mainly that you could just lower your resolution to make the dots larger. Perhaps in time the Auto setting can be made to work as intended and the pixel setting overrides can be dropped. Those seem like band aids for the problem they couldn’t solve at the moment particularly for VR.

The dark dots are equally visible that far away if you look at the other examples. One of the weaknesses of the system is if the dots are dark, what happens in front of dark backgrounds? It’s possible to see bright aircraft very well without the dots against the sea for example. It’s as if the game is trying to compensate for the background by making them lighter. This is the Hornet Caucuses 8v8 BVR mission, give it a try. If this is only caused by clouds, the trouble is there are almost always clouds. Even in the Persian Gulf for some strange reason…

DCS will always be a niche due to its complexity. Popularizing the game by reducing that would mean sort of abandoning what makes it unique. I think there is room for more FC4 style aircraft though but this would still be a niche product regardless. Making the aircraft even simpler was already tried in the form of Game Mode and that didn’t prove to be worth the effort. CFS game multiplayer will always be a niche of a niche simply because it involves staying connected online for so long. Yes it’s certainly possible to create air spawn instant action severs here but this demographic just doesn’t find that appealing and it’s rather counter to the nature of the sim. The addition of any aircraft to the roster of the game increase its appeal. They just need to be profitable really.

That looks intentional. It’s like you get light dots in front of dark backgrounds and dark dots in front of light backgrounds.

I agree not to be seen as any dot at all. solved.

I already have… Consider that many people are flying ground attack and probably don’t want to be that visible to everyone. You’re already a victim flying that way. No point in making things worse. The problem in DCS is that it’s not really an option to play on a different server, there are so few. Which is any adding another setting like this wasn’t such a good idea.

Yes I see this too

In order to exploit the system all a player needs to do is set their resolution to 1080x1920 or lower and enlarge the dots to 2 pixels. You can see large squares highlighting your enemies at 16 or so miles. They will actually appear as these white squares in front of the dark clouds too. These are all extremely visible in the actual gameplay. Enforcing the Auto mode would at least be a step in the right direction instead of allowing (local) and permitting exploits like this.

Well ED gave players the option to turn these off in missions or servers so it's up to them now.

What is an accessibility feature for some can just be an exploit for normally sighted people. In nearly every case eyesight is correctable. I have pretty severe presbyopia but treat it with contact lenses and progressive eyeglasses. ED isn’t your eye doctor. If you can’t see contacts on a 36” screen that’s a red flag that you need to go see one. The example I posted earlier is what a player sees with 1080 and 2 pixel dots. That’s an exploit pure and simple.