resolved New spotting is great / New spotting is overcooked feedback thread

[SaschaFFM]

I did not read through the whole conversation. I mainly play on coldwar and WW2 multiplayer-servers, so spotting is kind of essential to have a good experience for me.
At some point I do not even care if spotting is easier or harder than it is in real life, if only everyone would get the same result. Independent of VR or not and the resolution he uses.

I fly VR only. The spotting in VR was much worse than on monitor for the past years. Now with the new spotting it is the other way around. You get giant blobs for planes that are 20 miles away, so sneaking in is a thing of the past. But: This is heavily dependent on the resolution. I have a high PPD VR with eye-tracking and I see *nothing* beyond 3 miles or so. I set up a test-mission with targets in defined distances, so I can easily compare. When I deactivate high PPD mode and reduce resolution to its minimum, I can see planes in 20 miles distance again.

I would hope that everyone would be able to get the same spotting. It appears to just render the dots in something like 16x16 pixels for every device. Wouldnt it make more sense to make that relative to the fov? Like render a dot that is 0.2 degrees (fov). Perhaps I am thinking too easy here, but why wouldnt that work?

[Tippis]

4 hours ago, SaschaFFM said:

I would hope that everyone would be able to get the same spotting. It appears to just render the dots in something like 16x16 pixels for every device. Wouldnt it make more sense to make that relative to the fov? Like render a dot that is 0.2 degrees (fov). Perhaps I am thinking too easy here, but why wouldnt that work?

It's not 16×16 on any device, for starters. It's more like 2×2 + a small fade zone that may be dependent on stuff like AA settings (and AA “aggressiveness” for the lack of a better term). The problem seems to be partly in that extra zone, where it gets overly dark under some circumstances, and then made worse still depending on whether the screen does any post processing on its own. If you have a system where physical and effective resolution differ (like how some high-DPI modes or good old “retina displays” work), that might inflate it further, of course depending on where the scaling happens.

As for changing the size of the dot as a function of zoom, that would work… to a point. You'd still quickly run into the problem we had all along, where the minimum size would now vary according to what the screen is capable of, so your minimum size would be smaller than mine, letting you see things more easily, and someone running at a lower resolution would get larger dots still. So we arrive back at square one with what this revamp is trying to get away from. You'd also introduce the opposite problem where it would run the risk of being absurdly large before it switches over to rendering the full model. The range of sizes that would make sense for this adjustment is very narrow, especially compared to the range of FoV adjustments available to us. We're dealing with a detail that is pretty much defined by “being the smallest thing possible”, so making it smaller or larger as a function of zoom doesn't offer much wiggle room.

The problem is also that for such a calculation to work equitably, it would have to also figure in the real world FoV of the player, which means it would have to depend on being fed some parameters of the user's physical setup — raw pixel density of the screen you're using and the distance from that screen. Depending on how good (or willing) the display drivers are as far as reporting things like your PPD modes, they would also have be set manually by the player. Otherwise, once again, your on-screen 0.2° dot will be of a different size than mine, and correspondingly easier or harder to see. And thus, we arrive at a better, but similar situation where the player can simply lie about the parameters to make the game show dots larger.

Now, granted, that's such a minuscule problem that it might just be worth ignoring, but some insignificant portion of the player base will be all up in arms over the perceived PvP imbalance such an improvement would cause, and… well… we'd have this thread all over again.

[SaschaFFM]

Hmmmm, I think I did not clearly express what I meant. I do not want to base this on the actual fov. If someone wants to play on a 22 inch from 6 feet away ... to each his own. I mean rendered fov. DCS knows what fov is rendered in 2D or 3D

I basically only meant that spotting should be independent from resolution. Make the dots 1 degree for 5miles distance, 0.5 degree for 10 miles etc. These numbers are completely made up, might be far too big. This could and should be combined with the fading they introduced

If someone uses small fov, his dots will be bigger, as everything is bigger with smaller fov, also 3d rendered things, given the same screen size. And I mean rendered fov. 

But it would be independent from resolution and from 3D or 2D

Edited December 29, 2023 by SaschaFFM

[Tippis]

No, it was clear what you meant.

What I'm saying is that you run into the problem of what the dot is suppose to be: a representation of the smallest thing you can see. If it were any larger (e.g. because you changed your FoV to make it not-the-smallest any more), it shouldn't be a dot but rather transition to using the 3D model. With a bit of fudging, you get a small sliver of room to play with — maybe it's arguable that at below, say, 4×4 pixels, it may just as well be a blob because the 3D model won't reveal any additional details anyway.

But you still run across the same boundary issues: how small should the dot be at its smallest? 1px? Then resolution will matter and cause the problems we had with the old system, where you benefitted from having a lower resolution. How large should it be before it transitions to the 3D model? 2×2? 4×4? Then you run into the problem with close-in displays (eg. VR) where the blobbiness will be very apparent just before the transition, and you may end up recreating the issue many are having where it's easier to spot the blob at a long distance than it is to spot the 3D model at medium distances. How should it deal with smaller-than-smallest situations, irrespective of how small that is? You then need to play with colour fading as a function of how visible that smallest dot should be, and we get the current issues where the fading doesn't properly take the background into account.

It's not that what you're suggesting doesn't work — it's that it would only work or make any real difference within such a small band of contact sizes, between “should not be rendered at all” and “should not be a dot”, and we're talking about single-digit pixel numbers between those two boundaries, that it's questionable how much it would solve compared to how much it would introduce new (or reintroduce old) issues.

[SickSidewinder9]

Did something change with labels?  They don't seem to come in as quickly or as far as they used to.  Is it based on something deciding whether or not I have spotted the object?

Stuff is really hard to spot in this game, especially on the ground. 

1440p monitor, not VR.

[nuNce]

Is there anything that can be done to revert to the much improved visible dots that we had mid-october?

Currrent situation is horrible with airplanes disappearing against the blue sky.

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, nuNce said:

Is there anything that can be done to revert to the much improved visible dots that we had mid-october?

Currrent situation is horrible with airplanes disappearing against the blue sky.

Selecting Spotting Dots Off in version 2.9 reverts them back to the prior 2.8 method. You need to restart the game in order for this to take effect 

Edited January 5, 2024 by SharpeXB

[nuNce]

On 1/5/2024 at 2:33 PM, SharpeXB said:

Selecting Spotting Dots Off in version 2.9 reverts them back to the prior 2.8 method. You need to restart the game in order for this to take effect 

 

They are on but the airplanes are hard to spot again. Why on earth did they make them worse again? Now spotting aircrafts is terrible.

[SharpeXB]

32 minutes ago, nuNce said:

They are on but the airplanes are hard to spot again. Why on earth did they make them worse again? Now spotting aircrafts is terrible.

Well if spotting distant aircraft is “terrible” then it’s realistic Certain combinations of the 2.8 or 2.9 dots along with a particular resolution makes them fantastically too easy to see. You shouldn’t be able to easily see aircraft at 20-30 miles. 

[nuNce]

11 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Well if spotting distant aircraft is “terrible” then it’s realistic Certain combinations of the 2.8 or 2.9 dots along with a particular resolution makes them fantastically too easy to see. You shouldn’t be able to easily see aircraft at 20-30 miles. 

I know your stance on the subject, but it ain't going to change my mind. Current spotting with dots on makes it unrealistically hard to track enemy airplanes even against the blue sky.

[Joch1955]

Well after going back and forth on this, I would have to say the new spotting dots ON mechanism is a joke, especially once you get used to spotting dots OFF. You have huge dots you can spot at long distances which are bigger than the previous minimal icons. You no longer need to use your sensors, radar, EW, SA page, just spot the "icon" and point your plane towards it.

Spotting dots OFF is much more realistic IMHO, you can actually spot ACs at 10-15 nm if you pay attention, but it puts much more of a premium on using your sensors to spot other ACs.

Seems to me spotting dots ON is just another form of ICONS which were created by the Devs for players who actually want to use ICONS since they cannot handle realistic spotting restrictions, but want to pretend they are not using ICONS. I would just remove the spotting dots ON/OFF toggle, leave spotting dots OFF as the default setting and move spotting dots ON to the ICON setting where it belongs.

[Tippis]

41 minutes ago, Joch1955 said:

Well after going back and forth on this, I would have to say the new spotting dots ON mechanism is a joke, especially once you get used to spotting dots OFF. You have huge dots you can spot at long distances which are bigger than the previous minimal icons. You no longer need to use your sensors, radar, EW, SA page, just spot the "icon" and point your plane towards it.

Spotting dots OFF is much more realistic IMHO, you can actually spot ACs at 10-15 nm if you pay attention, but it puts much more of a premium on using your sensors to spot other ACs.

Classic dots could be seen out to 50nm and beyond, so no, they're not really more realistic. The problem you're seeing already existed, but only for some players. They had none of the restrictions of the current dots and would also be visible beyond maximum label ranges.

Classic dots also caused things to be more visible at lower resolutions, which was a different problem. This meant that the problem appeared very differently from one player to the next, so not only were sensors not always necessary — it happened in an unequal and counter-intuitive manner.

The new dots may be easier to see, but they're more equitable across display types and also cap out at much shorter ranges.

[MIghtymoo]

Now units are black squares and really visible in VR on very long range. When unit getting closer the square disappears. I am running 3900x3900 resolution.

Edited January 10, 2024 by MIghtymoo

[SharpeXB]

5 hours ago, nuNce said:

I know your stance on the subject, but it ain't going to change my mind. Current spotting with dots on makes it unrealistically hard to track enemy airplanes even against the blue sky.

Saying “unrealistically hard” for the purpose of this discussion has no meaning without screenshots and sources. Give us an actual example from the game of an aircraft which you think should be visible IRL that’s isn’t visible in the game. 

[Joch1955]

6 hours ago, Tippis said:

Classic dots could be seen out to 50nm and beyond, so no, they're not really more realistic. The problem you're seeing already existed, but only for some players. They had none of the restrictions of the current dots and would also be visible beyond maximum label ranges.

Classic dots also caused things to be more visible at lower resolutions, which was a different problem. This meant that the problem appeared very differently from one player to the next, so not only were sensors not always necessary — it happened in an unequal and counter-intuitive manner.

The new dots may be easier to see, but they're more equitable across display types and also cap out at much shorter ranges.

well players can use what they want, DCS is just a game after all, but the new spotting dots are not in any way realistic and is a step back from the previous behaviour. Not saying spotting dots off is perfect, I have never seen a spotting mechanism which was perfect in any sim, but certainly more "realistic" than sporting dots ON which is just another form of ICON IMHO.

 

[SharpeXB]

48 minutes ago, Joch1955 said:

well players can use what they want, DCS is just a game after all

The trouble here is that right now this isn’t controlled in multiplayer and so it totally open to being exploited. You can choose either the 2.8 or 2.9 version and see aircraft at 20-30 miles. I hope ED doesn’t consider this a solution. 

[Qcumber]

I am using DFR in VR with QP and there is a very strange effect where the "dots" appear as large smeared patches out of the corner of your eye. I presume this is due to lower peripheral resolution. It's annoying, but very useful at the same time. If you lose a contact, you just flick your eyes right or left and you see a black smudge appear. Not very realistic, although you could argue it might simulate picking up reflected light and movement in your peripheral vision. 

[Tippis]

10 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

well players can use what they want, DCS is just a game after all, but the new spotting dots are not in any way realistic and is a step back from the previous behaviour

You're going to have to qualify that.

The visibility range is reduced over the old dots.
Their size is more decoupled from display hardware so there's at least an attempt to make sure people see the same thing rather than wildly different contacts.
They have a smoother transition between dot and 3D model to try to get at the problem where targets would pop in and out of visibility as range decreased.

Where is the reduction in realism in that?

10 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

but certainly more "realistic" than sporting dots ON which is just another form of ICON IMHO.

It's no different from the old system in that regard. It works the same as far as putting a dot on top of a contact, only with a more nonsensical rendering limit.

And again, while the new dots may not be a better solution than you can find elsewhere, just the fact that there is cap on how far out they're rendered makes them inherently more realistic than the old dot system. There's just not way around that fact. Whether you feel that the minimum size they've picked to make it equitable between display hardware ruins that effect is a slightly different matter. But for the core purpose of indicating contacts at the far edge of visibility, they're just objectively better. They can be made better still but further reducing that range, sure, and that doesn't mean this first step isn't an improvement over the old.

[Joch1955]

4 hours ago, Tippis said:

You're going to have to qualify that.

The visibility range is reduced over the old dots.
Their size is more decoupled from display hardware so there's at least an attempt to make sure people see the same thing rather than wildly different contacts.
They have a smoother transition between dot and 3D model to try to get at the problem where targets would pop in and out of visibility as range decreased.

Where is the reduction in realism in that?

It's no different from the old system in that regard. It works the same as far as putting a dot on top of a contact, only with a more nonsensical rendering limit.

And again, while the new dots may not be a better solution than you can find elsewhere, just the fact that there is cap on how far out they're rendered makes them inherently more realistic than the old dot system. There's just not way around that fact. Whether you feel that the minimum size they've picked to make it equitable between display hardware ruins that effect is a slightly different matter. But for the core purpose of indicating contacts at the far edge of visibility, they're just objectively better. They can be made better still but further reducing that range, sure, and that doesn't mean this first step isn't an improvement over the old.

The new spotting dots ON mechanism is just another form of ICONS to make gameplay easier for players. It is much less realistic than the spotting dots OFF mechanism and is the gameplay equivalent of using ICONS.

I used to play 2.8 with the DOT NEUTRAL icons on. It was a fine compromise for me since the ICON is a small black dot and it only appears within 10 nm so it makes easier to spot ACs but does not ID them.

At first, I was happy to use spotting dots ON since I could turn off ICONS, but I quickly realized spotting dots ON is just another type of ICON. You have huge black dots that are larger than the DOT NEUTRAL icon and appear at a longer range. A so called "realistic" spotting option that is easier to use than actually using ICONS is obviously just another form of ICONS.

Worse, the new spotting dots ON ICONS ruin having a realistic gameplay experience. The reason why modern jets are equipped with multiple sensors is because fighter ACs are difficult to spot. You use the sensors to guide you to the enemy AC until you are close enough to spot it. That goes out the window when you are using the spotting dots ON ICONS, no need to use any sensors at all, just look for the huge black dot ICONS which are visible 20 nm+ away.

So to summarize:

-spotting dots ON = ICONS, easy spotting, easy gameplay.

-spotting dots OFF = no ICON, more realistic spotting option, more realistic gameplay.

As I suggested previously, the Devs should move the spotting dots ON option to the ICONS setting where it belongs and concentrate on fine tuning the spotting dots OFF mechanism for players looking for a realistic gameplay experience.

[Tippis]

1 hour ago, Joch1955 said:

The new spotting dots ON mechanism is just another form of ICONS to make gameplay easier for players.

The new spotting dot system is just another form of the spotting dots we had before, only rendered more intelligently. They are not related to the much older impostor system (which might conceivably be considered some kind of icon), nor to dot labels. They're not meant to make gameplay easier — they're meant to make it more equitable and more sensible. It achieves both of those goals, albeit perhaps not to the full extent some people would like.

1 hour ago, Joch1955 said:

It is much less realistic than the spotting dots OFF mechanism

By what measure?

Because of the decreased range?
Because of their being less tied to your hardware and more to the actual simulation?
Because of their smoother transition?

What is it about them that makes you call them less realistic, especially in view of those improvements?

1 hour ago, Joch1955 said:

It was a fine compromise for me since the ICON is a small black dot and it only appears within 10 nm so it makes easier to spot ACs but does not ID them.

By their default setup, dot labels are visible out to 30km (for aircraft), 20km (for ground units), 10km (for weapons), and 40km (for naval units). But they're customisable UI elements so you can crank up those ranges to your heart's delight. Not so with the new spotting dots (which also do not ID aircraft). Dot labels are also visible through all obstructions and have no real means beyond a predefined colour fade to vanish into the background.

If all of that counts as a fair compromise, what is it about the new labels (which shed some of those shortcomings) that makes them not be an even fairer compromise?

1 hour ago, Joch1955 said:

Worse, the new spotting dots ON ICONS ruin having a realistic gameplay experience. The reason why modern jets are equipped with multiple sensors is because fighter ACs are difficult to spot. You use the sensors to guide you to the enemy AC until you are close enough to spot it. That goes out the window when you are using the spotting dots ON ICONS, no need to use any sensors at all, just look for the huge black dot ICONS which are visible 20 nm+ away.

Anything that the new spotting dots do in this regard, the old ones did even more because they were visible at far longer ranges. You may not have noticed, but that was because of your hardware setup, so while you couldn't see them, other players could see you at absurd ranges without using sensors in the exact same way you're complaining about. The only difference was that it was not a feature shared among all clients. Some people had advantages over others because of the differences in rendering (and conversely, they also had disadvantages under different circumstances).

This, more than anything, ruins the gameplay experience — doubly so when you're not even aware of why others are seeing you long before you can see them.

If you want to play with “icons” on — i.e. turn on the dot label UI element — you can do so, but that is a very different thing from the spotting dots. You need to stop confusing the two. The impostor icons went away half a decade ago and haven't returned since.

1 hour ago, Joch1955 said:

So to summarize:

-spotting dots ON = ICONS, easy spotting, easy gameplay.

-spotting dots OFF = no ICON, more realistic spotting option, more realistic gameplay.

Nope.

• Spotting dots on = new spotting dots, no spotting at absurd ranges, more equitable gameplay across all ranges.
• Spotting dots off = old spotting dots, ridiculously unrealistic spotting ranges, and inherently unequal — under some circumstances almost downright cheaty — gameplay.

The new shorter ranges are more realistic.
The new decoupling from hardware differences is more realistic.
The smoother transition between rendering modes is more realistic.

And on top of that, unfair advantages between client setups are being… if not removed, then at least addressed.

 

Edited January 11, 2024 by Tippis

[Talisman_VR]

7 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

The new spotting dots ON mechanism is just another form of ICONS to make gameplay easier for players. It is much less realistic than the spotting dots OFF mechanism and is the gameplay equivalent of using ICONS.

I used to play 2.8 with the DOT NEUTRAL icons on. It was a fine compromise for me since the ICON is a small black dot and it only appears within 10 nm so it makes easier to spot ACs but does not ID them.

At first, I was happy to use spotting dots ON since I could turn off ICONS, but I quickly realized spotting dots ON is just another type of ICON. You have huge black dots that are larger than the DOT NEUTRAL icon and appear at a longer range. A so called "realistic" spotting option that is easier to use than actually using ICONS is obviously just another form of ICONS.

Worse, the new spotting dots ON ICONS ruin having a realistic gameplay experience. The reason why modern jets are equipped with multiple sensors is because fighter ACs are difficult to spot. You use the sensors to guide you to the enemy AC until you are close enough to spot it. That goes out the window when you are using the spotting dots ON ICONS, no need to use any sensors at all, just look for the huge black dot ICONS which are visible 20 nm+ away.

So to summarize:

-spotting dots ON = ICONS, easy spotting, easy gameplay.

-spotting dots OFF = no ICON, more realistic spotting option, more realistic gameplay.

As I suggested previously, the Devs should move the spotting dots ON option to the ICONS setting where it belongs and concentrate on fine tuning the spotting dots OFF mechanism for players looking for a realistic gameplay experience.

This!  That is how it looks to me too Joch.  

Happy landings,

Talisman

[SharpeXB]

8 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

-spotting dots ON = ICONS, easy spotting, easy gameplay.

I agree. As near as I can tell the new spotting dots are essentially the same thing as dot labels. The difference being that they can be seen at even greater ranges. And that they’re hidden by the cockpit. 

8 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

spotting dots OFF = no ICON, more realistic spotting option, more realistic gameplay.

I agree as well. But we would need a true OFF option as the one we have now simply produces the 2.8 version of the spotting dots. 
 

 

[Tippis]

8 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I agree. As near as I can tell the new spotting dots are essentially the same thing as dot labels. The difference being that they can be seen at even greater ranges. And that they’re hidden by the cockpit.

To clarify: the dot labels can be seen at even greater ranges, whereas the spotting dots are hidden by the cockpit. And aside from that, they are quintessentially different since the former is a customisable user-selectable UI element whereas the latter is part of the simulation.

Also…

8 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

But we would need a true OFF option as the one we have now simply produces the 2.8 version of the spotting dots. 

This is a catastrophically bad idea since it would mean completely abandoning all aspirations towards simulation and having a coherent and consistent gameplay experience.

Edited January 11, 2024 by Tippis

[Joch1955]

20 hours ago, Tippis said:

The new spotting dot system is just another form of the spotting dots we had before, only rendered more intelligently. They are not related to the much older impostor system (which might conceivably be considered some kind of icon), nor to dot labels. They're not meant to make gameplay easier — they're meant to make it more equitable and more sensible. It achieves both of those goals, albeit perhaps not to the full extent some people would like.

By what measure?

Because of the decreased range?
Because of their being less tied to your hardware and more to the actual simulation?
Because of their smoother transition?

What is it about them that makes you call them less realistic, especially in view of those improvements?

By their default setup, dot labels are visible out to 30km (for aircraft), 20km (for ground units), 10km (for weapons), and 40km (for naval units). But they're customisable UI elements so you can crank up those ranges to your heart's delight. Not so with the new spotting dots (which also do not ID aircraft). Dot labels are also visible through all obstructions and have no real means beyond a predefined colour fade to vanish into the background.

If all of that counts as a fair compromise, what is it about the new labels (which shed some of those shortcomings) that makes them not be an even fairer compromise?

Anything that the new spotting dots do in this regard, the old ones did even more because they were visible at far longer ranges. You may not have noticed, but that was because of your hardware setup, so while you couldn't see them, other players could see you at absurd ranges without using sensors in the exact same way you're complaining about. The only difference was that it was not a feature shared among all clients. Some people had advantages over others because of the differences in rendering (and conversely, they also had disadvantages under different circumstances).

This, more than anything, ruins the gameplay experience — doubly so when you're not even aware of why others are seeing you long before you can see them.

If you want to play with “icons” on — i.e. turn on the dot label UI element — you can do so, but that is a very different thing from the spotting dots. You need to stop confusing the two. The impostor icons went away half a decade ago and haven't returned since.

Nope.

• Spotting dots on = new spotting dots, no spotting at absurd ranges, more equitable gameplay across all ranges.
• Spotting dots off = old spotting dots, ridiculously unrealistic spotting ranges, and inherently unequal — under some circumstances almost downright cheaty — gameplay.

The new shorter ranges are more realistic.
The new decoupling from hardware differences is more realistic.
The smoother transition between rendering modes is more realistic.

And on top of that, unfair advantages between client setups are being… if not removed, then at least addressed.

 

The spotting dots on are just another type of ICONS.

It is actually quite easy to determine empirically the arcade level built in to the spotting dots on ICON mechanism.

MIG-21 fighters, because of their small size, can only be spotted when they are 2.5 miles away when viewed head on and 6 miles away when viewed from the side:

Target size determines the detection lobe size by increasing or decreasing the visual image size and, hence, the detection range. A head-on aircraft is much harder to see than one with a side or belly view because it is smaller. A MIG-21 has a head-on projected area of about 40 squarefeet and an estimated visual detection range of 2.5 nautical miles. In a sideview, the projected area increases to about 300 square feet, with an estimated detection range of 6 nautical miles. This increase in the visual image size enables detection to occur at a greater range.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/mig-21-combat.htm

This is also consistent with reports from Vietnam where the consensus among U.S. pilots was that MIG fighters were hard to spot at ranges over 3 miles.

In game, if you try missions against MIG-21s or MIG-21 sized ACs, you will initially spot them at ranges of 15-20 nm+ and at 10 nm head on, they are represented as huge black dots on the horizon which are impossible to miss.

So with the spotting dots ON ICONS, you are spotting the ACs at a range of 20 nm instead of 2.5 nm in real life, which means you are spotting the ACs eight times (8x) farther in the game than in real life. (note1: this is an estimate, someone would have to run tests to determine the exact arcade level of spotting dots ON). (note2: spotting dots OFF is also overly optimistic, but not as bad).

so to summarize again:

-spotting dots ON = ICONS, easy spotting, easy gameplay, spotting ACs in game at 8x greater distance than in real life.

-spotting dots OFF = no ICON, more realistic spotting option, more realistic gameplay.

As I suggested previously, the Devs should move the spotting dots ON option to the ICONS setting where it belongs and concentrate on fine tuning the spotting dots OFF mechanism for players looking for a realistic gameplay experience.

Edited January 12, 2024 by Joch1955

[Tippis]

4 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

The spotting dots on are just another type of ICONS.

No. You keep using that word. It doesn't mean what you think it means.

The spotting dots are a very naïve and simplistic way of simulating an edge case of perception on something as complex as an arbitrary-resolution display. They react (somewhat) to their surroundings and vary over range. They're also a massive improvement over the old spotting dots, since they aren't rendered at the same unrealistic ranges, and don't create arbitrarily uneven results on different systems.

5 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

So with the spotting dots ON you are spotting the ACs at a range of 20 nm instead of 2.5 nm in real life, which means you are spotting the ACs eight times (8x) farther in the game than in real life.

So you agree, then, that keeping the spotting dots on is more realistic than keeping them off, since the old system lets you spot aircraft out to 50nm on some setups — 20 times farther than the supposed real-life example — rather than the more sensible range we get now. Even if it's three times farther than perhaps it should be, that's still an improvement over twenty. It can probably be further tweaked, yes, but that's exactly what they're doing, and you will still come run into the need for some kind of system that hides the transition from “not seen” to “fully rendered in 3D”. Again, if you want to suggest that the old system was “more realistic”, you need to square that with the results the old system actually produced. You have yet to do so.

So to actually summarise:

• Spotting dots are not “icons.”
• Spotting dots on = new spotting dots, no spotting at absurd ranges, more equitable gameplay across all ranges.
• Spotting dots off = old spotting dots, ridiculously unrealistic spotting ranges, and inherently unequal — under some circumstances almost downright cheaty — gameplay.

5 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

As I suggested previously, the Devs should move the spotting dots ON option to the ICONS setting where it belongs and concentrate on fine tuning the spotting dots OFF mechanism for players looking for a realistic gameplay experience.

So your suggestion is that the devs keep on doing what they're already doing. The UI element that has traditionally been used to compensate for the atrocious spotting system can already be turned off (those aren't icons either by the way — they haven't been for almost a decade). They have introduced new dots to fine tune the mechanism for spotting dots and have created a more realistic (and equitable, as a bonus) gameplay experience.