bell_rj

I agree they are harder to get into now. In the release version it felt far too easy to get into a flat spin. I like the feel of the FM now (although I just gotta stop over-g'ing the airframe...).

Does this relate to the 'sticky' carrier handling?

Same here. F-14 taxiing on the carrier feels totally unrealistic. Like trying to extract myself from molasses.

Does this affect all in game shadows or just those inside the cockpit?

It feels logical to me that our community manager might do the liaison legwork and comment on behalf of ED.

Hey SharpeXB, if spotting gets too easy in future you could always sit further away from your monitor or perhaps buy a smaller one?

Same here.

I thought if I marked/ticked the box I should be getting call outs. Isn't the reverse a bit unintuitive? As it happens I'm here because I kept ticking the box and it keeps unticking itself for some reason. I was wondering why.

Thank you for the supportive comments. When I started the thread I had the sole objective of achieving greater visibility of the topic with the ED community manager, and then hopefully designers and developers. Thank you to NineLine for his involvement. The icing on the cake for now would be confirmation from NineLine that this topic has, or will soon have, received some additional focus within ED. I'm sorry if my initial post made some uncomfortable. Flying in DCS can be an emotive experience. I'm a big DCS fan, and that means getting excited about new developments and so it's only natural that the flipside is sometimes disappointment. That's life.

That crossed my mind but by that point the failed engine had been going again for a few minutes and I was flying 'normally' - i.e. straight, level, 400kts or so and couldn't work out what had caused it.

I had an engine flameout (not sure how but anyway) and I managed to restart it by following the cross bleed airstart checklist. After a few bangs (normal?) it restarted and spun up to desired RPM. I set engine mode to primary and carried on happily. After another minute or two the engine did a few more bangs. RPM looked normal. I was just wondering what they might have been? Needless to say, I enjoyed this near death experience as much as flying the rest of the F-14. :D Jester didn't seem to notice the lack of working left engine. Perhaps he was asleep?

Hi draconus, we've moved on from last month. ;) If you'd actually read the thread you wouldn't have posted half of what you did. Here's some helpful clarifications: Nobody has asked for anything to be ditched. There have been requests for 'improvements' and 'options'. I am confident that ED has the competency to avoid 'ditching' their good work so far, yet improve what they have got. We have all agreed on that. What is your point here? To help you, there has been some discussion on whether units are sometimes too hard to spot in certain circumstances. That spotting should be made 'easy' is not a general community opinion that I recognise. It's in the thread. But personally, I'd like some improvements to allow for easier spotting in the near to middle ground while retaining immersion and the option for the most realistic experience for those who like the current situation. Yeah we know. We aren't stupid. We spend our spare time reading F-14 NATOPS for goodness sake! Other games can be relevant in terms of how they provide a feeling of realism and immersion, making a great gameplay experience possible, whilst retaining the challenge. And that, surely, is what most people want? I appreciate that some are here for the highest realism, study sim experience and I think ED have done a great job with that experience too. Options are our friend - you already agreed. Please see my previous comment for the improvements I would like to see - offered as options as required. Massive assumption, and totally wrong in my case - and I'm sure many others. Have you seen the growth in massive high quality gaming screens in the last few years?

Good idea Rudel_chw. That also gets over the issue of the same track beginning every session. I tend to die a lot so don't get to the later tracks!

That's a false dilemma. DCS World already caters for both by offering various options. It also offers server settings so that unfair advantage does not an need to be issue in multiplayer. I believe you have misunderstand where most people think the issue is. Most comments I have read talk about spotting issues in the near to middle distance, not at long range. 30 mile unit spotting would indeed be a little excessive! Until the 'DCS: Death Star' module arrives, anyway. ;) The great thing about the visual cues that NineLine mentioned are they should, if done well, enhance graphical realism rather than detract.

It was a stroke of genius to have Meteor do the music - and what he's done is absolutely on the money. The music turns the experience from great to totally epic and grin inducing.

We've been having a recent discussion on it here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=3843506#post3843506 Thankfully, despite the bizarre attempts of a minority in the thread to dismiss the issue entirely, NineLine has acknowledged the issue again and reported that ED are looking at visual cues that might assist. I'm not hopeful that we'll see much inprovement soon unfortunately.

As an amusing and somewhat ironic aside, it struck me as odd that there's been so much comment from F-14 pilots on spotting planes since module release. Well now we know might why: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=3843492#post3843492 Pilots that would have relied on labels - even if just DOT labels - are finding it hard or impossible to spot targets without them. It's not unexpected that pilots who rely on labels would be unpracticed in spotting planes without labels, but the sheer volume of comments on other forums back up the point about the balance being off that I've been making since the beginning.

Yeah, it was driving me nuts for a while. I spent far too long pressing all the F keys, checking my settings, running a DCS repair before checking another aircraft and realising this was F-14 specific. I also suspect this is why the spotting issue is suddenly getting more comments - because no labels, not even dots are working and so all those F-14 pilots who usually use labels are suddenly realising how hard spotting is!

Varying the FOV doesn't always help find planes effectively. It can help, that's undeniable but I can tell you that on a 1440p screen and without labels I have to go to max FOV far too often to try to find planes that I believe should be more visible given the situation (lighting, etc) at the time. And once I go max FOV the portion of sky I'm looking at is very small so if I'm slightly off with my guess on where the target is then I'm in trouble... So the use of max FOV has major flaws in itself. On a side note, there have been some brave assumptions in other posts that people aren't using FOV correctly in their spotting. I suspect the use of appropriate zoom is actually alive and well.

Hi NineLine, Thank you for your interesting reply. I appreciate that you have addressed the issue and not tried to dismiss it as a small number of others have. The insight you have given us some insight into EDs attempts to improve visual cues is very interesting and it would be great to hear more on this as soon as ED are able to share updates. I enjoy the challenge of DCS - I don't want a dumbed down version necessarily - although having options like easy avonics and easy flight model is great for helping less proficient fliers overcome what can be a very steep learning curve. As they move up the curve they can turn off the easy mode options. I see spotting in the same way - it can be difficult and practice helps, the right technique helps, setting FoV correctly helps, labels help, etc. Starting with labels is a good option to start with, but I believe that the spotting learning curve is a bit too steep after that and I'm hoping for more improvements in the middle of the learning curve - like the improved visual cues you mention. As you recommended, I'm trying labels again. Especially now I know how to edit view.lua to customise label draw distance.

Labels aren't working in (at least two of) the training missions. As mentioned above, they are not locked out in the ME. I have just copied the Guns training mission, enforced FULL labels, saved as, and played the copy of the mission and the labels appear just fine. So there's a weird bug there. If I load an F-5E mission then labels are appearing as expected, it just seems to be the F-14 with the issue AFAIK.

Hi SharpeXB, I'm not claiming that those games are relevant. I was responding to your implication that I didn't know how to play a 3d game by pointing out that I've been playing them for a long time. I agree that those games didn't feature realistic graphics. The early flight sims had skies of few shades of blue. In the air, long distance targets would be represented by a single black or grey pixel that on an MCGA screen would be easy to see. On the ground, landscapes would be large blocks of green or sand with few details. Targets comprised of gray or black pixels tended to stick out like a sore thumb. In DCS we are blessed to have fantastic, complicated terrain textures. So units are quite hard to see on the ground but I think the balance is about right. It's not easy but not impossible to spot them. It feels realistic. I know others believe otherwise, and FLIR issues are a different beast again. Let's talk about being in the air now though - and you'll notice that a lot of, if not all, recent comments on Reddit are referring to AA combat not AG combat - I think the balance is off. It feels too difficult to spot units without resorting to labels (which I personally find a bit immersion breaking). Let's keep labels in DCS - options are good, right? Meanwhile I have read NineLine's reply above which gives me some hope that ED are working to make things better for those of us who would like spotting to be easier. I also hope that whatever changes ED make to the graphics engine that they please those who thinks spotting is currently just right for them.

@zhukov032186 "Cupcake" - Was that necessary? Telling people that they don't have a problem is strange when you cannot know if they do or not. As I said, you may not have the issue, but others surely do. It merely sounds as though you are trying to dismiss people rather than actually engage them in conversation. But rather than focus on your name calling (because that's how threads get locked) let's get back to spotting. I am hoping that ED will comment on it, as the last comment I can find is from NineLine about 6 months ago. The other open question, and a good one, is from Huilque151 who asked what the best graphical settings. Any constructive input on that matter might help others.

That's a little patronising. I've been playing flight sims since before Chuck Yeager's Air Combat and SWOTL - that was way back in 1991! In fact, I used to play Apache on an Amstrad PCW 9512 before that - an interesting experience but still cool even on a green screen. So I can probably figure out how to play a 3D game? And that's just me, I suspect that many other people reporting the issue may also have a little flight sim experience? Just a hunch...

I find the arrogance of those who continue to insist that I and others shouldn't have a problem with spotting to be verging on trolling. Please desist. You may not have a problem with spotting, and I am pleased for you, but I do. If the debate irritates you then simply don't read the thread. You need to realise that we are all different, play this game differently, and sometimes have problems that others won't. If I was the only person reporting an issue then I would be willing to conceed that the problem is at my end. A few minutes reading on this site and other forums confirms that I am far from alone.