visibility - mulitplayer server are disabling imposter system as they call it buggy

[gamerman972]

hello

visibility of aircraft aside from when imposters are set to large are flawed. one can't see the aircrafts in visible range. and given the fact the multiplayer server are disabling imposters because they call it buggy handicaps the game. the game as it stands as a bvr sim only (can't do dog fighting). heads down all the time into radar and rwr (sucks), might as well fly at night all the time. please make this top of your priority as this is one of the most critical issues in my opinion.

[BIGNEWY]

I have mine set to medium and see them just fine.

 

What the server sets is up to the server admin

 

what is your screen resolution?

[Shahdoh]

We use the small imposter on the Virtual Aerobatics server. Helps out just a tiny bit. Medium and Large almost seem like the same setting. Think it would be nice if they shrunk the medium down a bit more to be more evenly set between the small and large setting.

[Talisman_VR]

My passion is flying as a member of a squad on multi-player on-line servers for WWII and Korea. I find the imposter system so shockingly bad, with grey smudgy aircraft appearing strangely and at odd distances (and disappearing), that it is putting me off flying DCS all together at the moment. I fly every now and then just to keep in practise in the hope that things will get better soon. I am not purchasing anymore modules (with the exception of the Spitfire) until I feel confident that DCS can deliver decent air-to-air visibility.

It is important to be able to gauge speed and energy states of opposing aircraft, particularly ahead of a combat merge, in a natural way in terms of eye/brain to hand coordination. In this respect I don't understand how the imposter system will do anything to help provide a natural near to real life effect and am concerned that it will just irritate by its unnatural effect. I hope I am very wrong and all will be well in the end, but right now I have to confess that I am worried that the lack of something approaching more realistic air-to-air visual capability is going to kill off my interest in all the other good things DCS appears to be offering for the future. Many of my squad mates are seasoned flight simmers (including ex pilots, engineers and air force) with well over 10 years experience of various sim's, but it is difficult for us to envisage increasing involvement with DCS as our simulator of choice if the air-to-air visibility issue is not resolved.

 

Happy landings,

 

Talisman

[SharpeXB]

The whole problem with the idea of imposters to begin with is that it just creates another server setting and players aren't ever going to be able to agree on what to set it for. The easiest setting to agree on seems to be Off.

It's a flaw inherent in the whole concept of "Model Enlargement". A setting which allows players to make other objects larger is about certain to be disabled on MP servers that want to focus on "realistic"

[gamerman972]

Dear Bignewy,

thank you very much for taking a notice to my issue. I appreciate it very much. My resolution in 1080p. I agree with the comments of 56RAF_Talisman. in a dog fight in a clear day one ought to able to visually detect a target at up to 7nm and be able to detect it's general direction of flight at about 5 nm and about 2nm one ought to be able to guage it's relative speed compare to ones own.

[doodenkoff]

What he means is 1024 x 768, or 1920 x 1080...etc.

[gamerman972]

That would be 1920 x 1080

[gamerman972]

here is another reason why visibility is broken (can't see objects at visible range).

here is the reason why imposter system is broken and multiplayer servers don't use them. I can see F15 at 20 nm out (attached screen shot taken at 15 nm out)

[klem]

I'm raising this again because the real problem is not with imposters. It's possible to change the imposter settings in the appropriate files and I can get a reasonable setup doing that. In fact the EDs options aren't so bad.

 

The real problem is that the Model, not the imposter, fades out far too quickly and makes it impossible to keep the a/c visible in close dogfights. Typically in the 1nm region the a/c you are fighting simply disappears, first into a vague pale colour (NOT camouflage) them washed out altogether as it vanishes against the terrain. This is not a case of camouflage, it simply vanishes. Try it Sabre vs MiG even with imposters set to large. There's a mission attached.

 

I have created imposters as large as a house but when I get close in the model takes over and the problem begins.

 

Those of you familiar with the imposter files may think the distance at which the imposter takes over (and therefore could be used to 'overwrite' the model) can be set using the maxSize but it seems from all the tests I have done there is an overriding distance value within which the imposter simply will not be drawn. Curiously the effect is more apparent when aircraft are going away from me than when they are approaching. ED need to take a serious look at that. I know there are people who will say 'in RL a/c are hard to see' but not at a mile.

 

Perhaps, as someone has suggested, this is inherited from DCS being largely a BVR/Radar driven sim with no need, prior to WWII/Korea, to consider near visibility too seriously.

 

EDIT: The 'vanishing point' is actually about 1nm not .3nm, my mistake, That's for a MiG-15.

Sabre vs Mig_24MP_No End.zip

Edited June 11, 2016 by klem
Correction

[gamerman972]

I haven't received any further reply form ED since the last message from BigNewy asking about my screen resolution. I am not sure what is on their minds. I would really appreciate if they can share their thoughts, opinions on this matter. I really hope they acknowledge the problem as that is the first step to solving any problem :)

[BIGNEWY]

Hi nothing to say, that's why I have not commented :)

 

Imposter's are still being worked on by ED, I am not privy to any new information so can not comment.

[gavagai]

I really hope they acknowledge the problem as that is the first step to solving any problem :)

 

They acknowledged it by adding the impostors in the first place. But I'm with you and the others. This one thing is holding people back, especially in the WW2/Korea era, from playing DCS. How do I know? Because I play less because of it.;)

[gamerman972]

I hope what ever they do to fix it, should be standard (not some thing that is based on users preference). Because some multiplayer servers will always turn it off and i am pointing to 104th. just to provide some reference every one can see narrow bodied commercial jets (not 747s) flying at ~35000 feet (6 miles) and that is just when they are exactly over head. However, one can see them approaching miles away so one should be able to see those around 10 miles out easily. So i figure for a figure for a fighter jet one should be able to see those atleast at 7 miles out.