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

[MIghtymoo]

I am confused between "dot labels" and "spotting dots". 

What happens with "spotting dots" if you have enabled/disables "dot labels"?

I have both on today in DCS.

Edited January 12, 2024 by MIghtymoo

[Joch1955]

2 hours ago, Tippis said:

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.

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.

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.

I am not sure what you are actually trying to prove. My point is simple as I keep repeating, spotting dots ON are just ICONS IMHO. They allow players to spot planes too easily at too long a range. If you want to use them that is fine and you should not be embarrassed about using ICONS if that is your preferred play style.

Spotting dots ON are not in any way realistic. They are actually worse than regular icons which have a hard stop at 10 nm. Spotting dots OFF have there own issue, but is better than the alternative until/if the Devs actually produce a more realistic spotting system.

so yes, spotting dots ON = ICONS, easy gameplay, easy spotting.

p.s. - we can keep this going for a long time, but I am not sure what you think you will achieve. 

Edited January 12, 2024 by Joch1955

[Tippis]

2 hours ago, MIghtymoo said:

I am confused between "dot labels" and "spotting dots". 

What happens with "spotting dots" if you have enabled/disables "dot labels"?

I have both on today in DCS.

Nothing really happens to them. The dot labels are just rendered on top of (and possibly slightly offset from) them.

Oh, and also, of course, you can redefine the dot labels to not be dots at all, and to render at full opacity out to max range and all kinds of other fun stuff. The font used doesn't have the full Unicode table, but if you want to be really silly, you can circumvent that too and have dot labels show up as “” for friendlies, “” for enemies and… idk… for incoming weapons if you like.

This makes the game… a bit odd, visually.

 

2 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

I am not sure what you are actually trying to prove.

I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm simply saying say that your opinion is incorrect. Spotting dots are not icons. They also allow players to spot planes later than the old dots because their range has been reduced. This makes them more realistic than the old dots.

Depending on your circumstances, the dot may be larger than before, making it easier for you to spot the spotting dot (I realise that putting it this way sounds a bit redundant, but it is actually a key point in all of this). But all that is really happening is that you are seeing the dot at a normalised size, the same as everyone else. Before, we had the issue that the spotting dot had a fixed size of 1px, and this in turn meant that it was difficult to see for some but very easy to see for others. It all depended on your resolution.

So not only were the spotting dots previously rendered at wholly unrealistic ranges — far longer than they are now — but they were also rendered in such a way that, while you may not have (easily) seen a target at that extreme range, they could easily have seen you. What you feel is now “too easy” is actually how other players have been spotting you all along. An important part of this new system is that they're trying to eliminate this inequality: you can now see them just as easily as they can see you.

 

…whether or not it actually succeeds in doing so is a different matter altogether.

2 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

Spotting dots ON are not in any way realistic.

They are actually far more realistic than the old ones because the possible detection range has been reduced. It might not have been reduced as far as you would like it, but it has been reduced nevertheless. If you didn't see things as far out before, then once again, that was solely due to your settings — other players could see them very far, and even came to this forum to use that as evidence for how the spotting system was not broken and shouldn't be touched (the 50nm figure mentioned before was from one such post).

This is why I keep asking you by what measure you say they're not realistic.

You are confusing the improved realism (as far as detection range goes) and the normalisation of dot size. Under certain circumstances, the latter somewhat counteracts the former, but only to a point. You can see targets more easily, yes, but that's actually realistic too — not because of the size at any particular range, but because you are no longer suffering from the artificial disadvantage of running a higher resolution than another player. Your virtual pilot is has the same eyesight as the other guy's virtual pilot. Now, it seems like the main reason behind your saying that they're unrealistic is the detection range, but again, that has also been improved. Can it be improved further? Sure, probably, but that doesn't change the fact that the possible detection range has been reduced already. Reverting makes it less realistic. That easier-to-see dot can not be seen as far out as the harder-for-you-but-not-for-others dot could be seen before.

2 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

so yes, spotting dots ON = ICONS, easy gameplay, easy spotting

Maybe, but you have to compare that against the other option: spotting dots OFF = “ICONS” (by the exact same token) that I can arbitrarily make larger, which means easy gameplay and easy spotting at even longer ranges.

Your complaint is effectively that your unwarranted arbitrary disadvantage has been removed. The game will not be better (and definitely not more realistic) just because you want it to be harder than it should be.

Edited January 12, 2024 by Tippis

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, Joch1955 said:

Spotting dots OFF have there own issue, but is better than the alternative until/if the Devs actually produce a more realistic spotting system.

Spotting Dots Off isn’t actually a true Off function. It just reverts the setting back to the 2.8 dots. Playing in 4K it may appear to be off because the 2.8 dots are effectively invisible at that resolution. But now every player is free to exploit any setting they like online. 

[Joch1955]

16 minutes ago, Tippis said:

I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm simply saying say that your opinion is incorrect. Spotting dots are not icons. They also allow players to spot planes later than the old dots because their range has been reduced. This makes them more realistic than the old dots.

Depending on your circumstances, the dot may be larger than before, making it easier for you to spot the spotting dot (I realise that putting it this way sounds a bit redundant, but it is actually a key point in all of this). But all that is really happening is that you are seeing the dot at a normalised size, the same as everyone else. Before, we had the issue that the spotting dot had a fixed size of 1px, and this in turn meant that it was difficult to see for some but very easy to see for others. It all depended on your resolution.

So not only were the spotting dots previously rendered at wholly unrealistic ranges — far longer than they are now — but they were also rendered in such a way that, while you may not have (easily) seen a target at that extreme range, they could easily have seen you. What you feel is now “too easy” is actually how other players have been spotting you all along. An important part of this new system is that they're trying to eliminate this inequality: you can now see them just as easily as they can see you.

 

…whether or not it actually succeeds in doing so is a different matter altogether.

They are actually far more realistic than the old ones because the possible detection range has been reduced. It might not have been reduced as far as you would like it, but it has been reduced nevertheless. If you didn't see things as far out before, then once again, that was solely due to your settings — other players could see them very far, and even came to this forum to use that as evidence for how the spotting system was not broken and shouldn't be touched (the 50nm figure mentioned before was from one such post).

This is why I keep asking you by what measure you say they're not realistic.

You are confusing the improved realism (as far as detection range goes) and the normalisation of dot size. Under certain circumstances, the latter somewhat counteracts the former, but only to a point. You can see targets more easily, yes, but that's actually realistic too — not because of the size at any particular range, but because you are no longer suffering from the artificial disadvantage of running a higher resolution than another player. Your virtual pilot is has the same eyesight as the other guy's virtual pilot. Now, it seems like the main reason behind your saying that they're unrealistic is the detection range, but again, that has also been improved. Can it be improved further? Sure, probably, but that doesn't change the fact that the possible detection range has been reduced already. Reverting makes it less realistic. That easier-to-see dot can not be seen as far out as the harder-for-you-but-not-for-others dot could be seen before.

Maybe, but you have to compare that against the other option: spotting dots OFF = “ICONS” (by the exact same token) that I can arbitrarily make larger, which means easy gameplay and easy spotting at even longer ranges.

Your complaint is effectively that your unwarranted arbitrary disadvantage has been removed. The game will not be better (and definitely not more realistic) just because you want it to be harder than it should be.

 

well no, my opinion is correct, since it is actually based on facts.  You want to believe spotting dots ON are not an ICON so you can pretend you are playing without ICONS but you are just deluding yourself.

You just have to try any SP missions, for example the F/A-18 mission where you go up against 6 x SU25 drones on the Caucasus map. The SU25 are at different altitudes, higher, co-altitude and lower.

With the spotting dots ON, all SU25s are easy to spot, whether higher, at co-altitude or against the ground. They have a huge black spot over them which makes them impossible to spot. It is completely un-realistic and arcadish. I have never seen any other "sim" with such an un-realisitc system. Real fighter pilots would wish it was that easy.

With spotting dots OFF, planes at co-altitude or higher are still fairly easy to spot, but the dots are smaller, appear later and are easier to miss. Planes below you are much harder/impossible to spot since they are hidden by the ground. All in all, it is a much more realistic experience.

But no one has to take my word for it, they can try the game for themselves and form their own opinion. They will then see how "arcadish" spotting dots ON are.

Just because you want to believe spotting dots ON is realistic does not make it so.

[Tippis]

19 minutes ago, Joch1955 said:

well no, my opinion is correct, since it is actually based on facts.

It really isn't.

It contradicts what has been known about the spotting system for many many years, and mislabels them as something that was discarded a long time ago.
The simple fact is that the old system let you spot targets out to absurd ranges. A prolific poster in this very thread posted a screen shot of one showing up clear as day at 50nm in a long-since archived discussion on why the old system had to be changed.
The simple fact is that the old system let you make those dots trivial to see by simply changing your graphics settings.
The simple fact is that it is no more an “icon” than the old system. That's a better description of a system that was removed back in 2016. It was — if such a thing can even be believed — somehow even worse than the old dots.

19 minutes ago, Joch1955 said:

With spotting dots OFF, planes at co-altitude or higher are still fairly easy to spot, but the dots are smaller, appear later and are easier to miss

…with your settings. With other settings, none of that is actually true. In actual fact, with only the simplest of changes, they'll be the same size (or larger), appear sooner, and be harder to miss (since they will have faded in more at the equivalent range).

19 minutes ago, Joch1955 said:

Just because you want to believe spotting dots ON is realistic does not make it so.

Not my belief, no. But the long-established and well-documented history of the many quirks and oddities and downright daftness of the old spotting system does.

You can try this yourself.

Edited January 12, 2024 by Tippis

[freehand]

I not going to read all the posts but what is this dot thing ? can some one with a short explanation of what the thread is about please ?

[Tippis]

3 minutes ago, freehand said:

I not going to read all the posts but what is this dot thing ? can some one with a short explanation of what the thread is about please ?

In one corner: the new dots are large and too apparent, and make it too easy to see planes to the point where you don't need to use your radar.

In the other corner: the new dots are now of reasonably comparable sizes across different hardware, and show up at shorter ranges.

In the third corner: why do we even have dots?

[freehand]

7 minutes ago, Tippis said:

In one corner: the new dots are large and too apparent, and make it too easy to see planes to the point where you don't need to use your radar.

In the other corner: the new dots are now of reasonably comparable sizes across different hardware, and show up at shorter ranges.

In the third corner: why do we even have dots?

Your asking me why ? 

I have no idea what your talking about .

 

Edited January 12, 2024 by freehand

[Tippis]

9 minutes ago, freehand said:

Your asking me why ? 

I have no idea what your talking about .

No, I'm answering your question and giving you a short rundown of what the thread is about. The discussion is basically bouncing back and forth between those three positions.

[SharpeXB]

26 minutes ago, freehand said:

I not going to read all the posts but what is this dot thing ? can some one with a short explanation of what the thread is about please ?

DCS adds a graphic “dot” over distant aircraft. This as been done since about version 1.5 and is different than the label “icon” feature. Prior to v2.9 this was sized in pixels and so appeared larger at lower resolutions. In v2.9 this was modified in the attempt to make the dot the same size at various (higher) resolutions. The setting in Options Spotting Dots On or Off toggles between both modes. On=2.9 Off=2.8. Try for yourself and see. Note you need to restart the game in order for this to take effect. 

[freehand]

2 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

DCS adds a graphic “dot” over distant aircraft. This as been done since about version 1.5 and is different than the label “icon” feature. Prior to v2.9 this was sized in pixels and so appeared larger at lower resolutions. In v2.9 this was modified in the attempt to make the dot the same size at various (higher) resolutions. The setting in Options Spotting Dots On or Off toggles between both modes. On=2.9 Off=2.8. Try for yourself and see. Note you need to restart the game in order for this to take effect. 

cheers I am kind of lucky as I do not do the air to air stuff just ground pounding so good luck people in finding the right solution for you all.

[SharpeXB]

7 minutes ago, freehand said:

cheers I am kind of lucky as I do not do the air to air stuff just ground pounding so good luck people in finding the right solution for you all.

Apparently the 2.9 dots appear on ground targets as well. Not sure about 2.8. 

[Joch1955]

@Tippis The fatal flaw in your logic is that you are equating consistency and realism.

I understand your argument that you prefer spotting dots ON because you claim that spotting is more consistent for all players in MP, but consistency does not guarantee realism. You can have consistent views which are highly unrealistic as is the case here.

Spotting dots ON are highly unrealistic since you have huge black icons which can be spotted at unrealistically long distances and at unrealistic viewing angles. It makes spotting way too easy and kills any realistic gameplay. 

As I posted above, with spotting dots ON, you can spot airplanes up to eight times (8x) farther than in real life.

[MIghtymoo]

1 hour ago, Joch1955 said:

@Tippis The fatal flaw in your logic is that you are equating consistency and realism.

I understand your argument that you prefer spotting dots ON because you claim that spotting is more consistent for all players in MP, but consistency does not guarantee realism. You can have consistent views which are highly unrealistic as is the case here.

Spotting dots ON are highly unrealistic since you have huge black icons which can be spotted at unrealistically long distances and at unrealistic viewing angles. It makes spotting way too easy and kills any realistic gameplay. 

As I posted above, with spotting dots ON, you can spot airplanes up to eight times (8x) farther than in real life.

Agree. What bugs me the most with the dots, is that you can see units through clouds.

[Tippis]

7 hours ago, Joch1955 said:

Spotting dots ON are highly unrealistic since you have huge black icons which can be spotted at unrealistically long distances and at unrealistic viewing angles. It makes spotting way too easy and kills any realistic gameplay. 

As I posted above, with spotting dots ON, you can spot airplanes up to eight times (8x) farther than in real life.

…and with spotting dots off, you can spot airplanes up to twenty times (20×) farther than in real life. Getting that down to 8x is a massive improvement. You may want it to be more, and that's fair — I actually agree fully — but you can't get away from the fact that 8× is more realistic than 20×. You, personally, may not have experienced these massive ranges, but they were nevertheless what the old system produced if asked to.

And that is also why consistency is part of the realism: because with the same set if simulated eyes, you should always see the same target under the same circumstances at the same range. It should not have a 250% margin of error just because of differences in the most basic of game settings — that's when you know the simulation has fundamentally failed.

The same goes for the supposed (but not actual) “hugeness”: they may be 2×2 pixels for you, but that is the same size as 1×1 for the other guy. Just because they could be rendered smaller on your screen doesn't make them huge — it just makes them equally sized. Again, it would be an absolute folly if the same target under the same circumstances would be differently sized for reasons that have nothing to do with the simulation.

The new dots are not making spotting far too easy. They make it as easy as it ever was, on an equal basis. You just happened to have a harder time of it than others before,, and the fact that it is now as easy for you as it is for everyone else doesn't mean the game has gone all “arcade”. It just means you are not being arbitrarily punished for no in-game reason.

Coincidentally, most arcade games have far more realistic spotting (and spotting ranges) than DCS has ever had, so I'm not even entirely convinced that would be a bad way to go. Granted, they have it accidentally, and for vastly different reasons but still…

[Tippis]

2 hours ago, James DeSouza said:

Yes.  This is why spotting dots as a concept are wrong.  You should instead just model the aircraft and have it scale down into invisibility as it naturally would.

Except you can't, because that would let you spot the aircraft further out than you'd naturally be able to. To make your idea work, you would have to somehow force specific monitor distances depending on display DPI and you would have to remove zoom. The first is impossible, the latter would cause a ton of unwanted side-effects. Just for reference, the way I have my screen set up, I get “natural vision” (as in, 1px is just below what the eye can resolve) at roughly a 60° FoV. Any amount I can zoom in further than that equates to a distance I can see planes farther than I should.

The alternative is to have immense pop-in: cull planes that are beyond some to-be-decided max range, and as soon as they come closer than that, they start to be drawn. But what happens on my screen when I'm zoomed in and looking for targets then? The plane that just came into view will go from being invisible to suddenly being a 16-pixel blob that is immediately spotted, just by virtue of it showing up, when it should in fact be just about impossible to see.

The spotting dots try to accommodate those issues by having something that still draws when the 3D model just resolves into a very tiny pixel blob, but which can then be faded into invisibility faster (and, perhaps more importantly, uniformly across all hardware setups) than the 3D model would. No pop-in, no removal of zoom, no reliance on the player being honest about their setup and graphics settings.

2 hours ago, James DeSouza said:

There is no perfect solution.  There is never going to be a perfect solution. 

True. But having dots cover the transition between “minimal drawing size” and “not visible” is probably part of the best solution. You'd still need something else for the mid-to-long distance to take care of the other silliness the DCS spotting system creates, but that's not really the purview of the dots to begin with (even if they help a bit there as well the way they've been implemented now).

Just rendering the aircraft according to perspective would bump up against the old issues we had with the previous systems: aircraft being visible far too far out, and being arbitrarily tied to hardware and physical setup. A transition method to invisibility would still be needed because it can be controlled and made independent of those out-of-game parameters.

[James DeSouza]

On 1/12/2024 at 6:15 AM, Joch1955 said:

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.

 

2-10 miles with a rough average in the 3-5 range is actual spotting ranges.  The guy you are arguing with just wants cheats with the flimsy justification that they're bundled with the game by default.

 

Several investigations have been made to determine aircraft target acquisition capabilities. A total of 759 training engagements at the Naval Air Station Oceana Tactical Air Combat Training System (TACTS) range revealed that in 624 of the engagements the pilots first sighted the target as a dot against the background at an average distance of 5.67 nmi (Hamilton & Monaco, 1986; Monaco & Hamilton, 1985). In the remaining 135 engagements exhaust smoke, contrails and sun glint off the aircraft allowed the pilots to detect the aircraft at even greater distances. In the 122 engagements where exhaust smoke was the primary cue, detection distances averaged 7.64 nmi

(This was with an F-14 squadron as an aside, F-14 being the size of a small planet.)

 

In 1983, Kress & Brictson studied 87 air-to-air engagements at the Yuma TACTS range. Average unaided detection distances for the target F-5 and F-4 aircraft were 3.1 nmi. When the pilots were aided with a head-up display (HUD) symbol that cued the pilot to the target’s location, the mean detection distance grew to 6.8 nmi

 

Another study that investigated detection distances was Temme & Still (1991). They measured air-to-air target detection distances at the Naval Air Station Oceana TACTS range to see if there was a performance difference between those pilots who wore corrective eyeglasses and those who did not. Those with eyeglasses did not detect the targets until they were about 10% closer than those with unaided vision. Two very closely matched groups of eyeglass and non-eyeglass wearers had average detection ranges of 4.52 and 5.64 nmi respectively when using all detection means including aircraft sighting, target glint, contrails and exhaust smoke. When limiting subjects to aircraft-only detections, the corresponding distances were 4.35 and 5.54 nmi respectively.

 

Another study by Hutchins in 1978 at the Air Combat Maneuvering Range (ACMR), which is the earlier name of the TACTS, involved 45 air combat training engagements. The mean detection distance of the A-4 targets was 3.09, with a range of 0.38 to 6.23 nmi. Other studies were done using observers on the ground. With visibility conditions spanning 7 to 10 miles over an 8-day testing period, O’Neal & Miller (1998) found detection distances for approaching T-38 aircraft to ranged from 4.77 to 6.73 nmi.

 

Another ground observer study used 400 visual detections of a T-38 aircraft (Provines, Rahe, Block, Pena, & Tredici, 1983). The aircraft was approaching from a known direction and a distance of 9 miles and mean detection distance was 4.55 miles over the 400 trials.

 

A final note about detection distances is that actual detection distances for target aircraft have been found to be considerably less than would be predicted theoretically. For example, the previously mentioned Hamilton & Monaco (1986) and Monaco & Hamilton (1985) studies found that the exposed amount aircraft needed for detection was about four times larger than mathematically predicted based on the subjects’ performance on two vision tests for high contrast acuity and visual detection thresholds. Several environmental, vision and flight performance factors were believed to account for this disconnect.

 

 

 

The spotting dots and the "smart scaling" crowd are arguing for unrealistic spotting distances based off of hypothetical maximum performance for the human eye and then adding more on top of that for no discernable reason when the simple fact is that in reality you never get that.

Edited January 20, 2024 by James DeSouza

[Tippis]

28 minutes ago, James DeSouza said:

The spotting dots and the "smart scaling" crowd are arguing for unrealistic spotting distances based off of hypothetical maximum performance for the human eye and then adding more on top of that for no discernable reason when the simple fact is that in reality you never get that.

That is in pretty much every way imaginable the exact opposite of what we're arguing for.

It is exactly because of the catastrophically unrealistic spotting distances of the old system, and the highly unrealistic continuity of how planes fade in and out of visibility, and the ridiculously unrealistic effects of arbitrary graphics settings on those spotting distances that we argue in favour of pretty much anything over the old, because almost anything will inherently be better than the old system. Even the new one is, in spite of its first-run warts and flaws.

What is needed is something that can work on an arbitrary-resolution display (so fixed sizes at any given distance won't work), that doesn't draw beyond visible range (so pure trigonometry won't work), yet doesn't cause pop-in (so a fade-transition solution is needed), that compensates for and counteracts variable FoV (so variable scaling is needed). A single method will not do all of that; leaving it alone certainly won't; and relying on pure perspective will fail just about every single criterion. But there is a solution that satisfies all those needs… It is far from impossible.

Edited January 20, 2024 by Tippis

[James DeSouza]

On 1/10/2024 at 8:11 AM, 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.

Spotting aircraft IS HARD.  That's the whole point.  "Lose sight lose the fight".  It's hard to lose sight when the opponent is a giant black blob.

[James DeSouza]

On 12/12/2023 at 8:36 PM, Extranajero said:

Ignore him - you won't make him see reason because he's obsessed with the idea that someone might get a tiny advantage over him in PVP and is willing to have every other DCS user blind as long as he personally is OK.
The tiny number of ultra competitive people like him have been screaming and shouting over perceived 'balance' issues out of all proportion to their actual numbers for years - they've been an absolute pestilence on the DCS community and they've had it all their own way for much too long. I don't know why they don't just take up Fortnite, if they want to participate in an E-Sport.
 

It's not even about competitiveness.  It's about realism (or maybe authenticity would be the correct word).  If you want a game where you see everything all the time so you can have all of your epic dogfights where you never get lost and no one ever gets the drop on you there's plenty of games that offer that experience such as;

https://store.steampowered.com/app/502500/ACE_COMBAT_7_SKIES_UNKNOWN/

 

Meanwhile some of us want realism/authenticity, and the closest thing to actual realworld visibility is just not having spotting dots.  It's actually almost a 1:1 match with maximum theoretical human visual fidelity at DCS's max zoom on a 4k screen, less with a lower resolution or without using zoom.  But the important thing is that you don't have ugly black blocks flying around.  The old system wasn't as bad as the new one, to the point where you could mostly ignore it, but it's still ultimately the same problem.

[Tippis]

17 minutes ago, James DeSouza said:

Spotting aircraft IS HARD.  That's the whole point.  "Lose sight lose the fight".

And the counter-point is that, whether you grasp why or not, you are actually arguing in favour of making it easier than it should be.

Also, realise that you're not really offering a counter to his claim here: just because it's supposed to be hard doesn't mean it can't erroneously be made unrealistically hard. Under some circumstances, its. Under others, it's the opposite. That in and of itself is a problem that needs to be addressed.

  

8 minutes ago, James DeSouza said:

It's actually almost a 1:1 match with maximum theoretical human visual fidelity at DCS's max zoom on a 4k screen

You state that as if it were categorically true. It's not. It depends on a whole bunch of other parameters that you're not taking into account. That's another part of the problem that needs to be addressed.

The way you state that, the exact same thing holds true for every resolution supported by the game.

Edited January 20, 2024 by Tippis

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, James DeSouza said:

2-10 miles with a rough average in the 3-5 range is actual spotting ranges. 

It doesn’t matter how much real life data you cite. Players have been convinced by video games over the years that they’re supposed to easily see aircraft at great ranges. Cause that makes video games “fun”

[Tippis]

6 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

It doesn’t matter how much real life data you cite. Players have been convinced by video games over the years that they’re supposed to easily see aircraft at great ranges. Cause that makes video games “fun”

Here, it sounds like you're against that. And yet, you're arguing in favour of even greater ranges — contrary to all data and scientific inquiry quoted to you — and against having those ranges reduced to far more sensible numbers. Why is that?

[BIGNEWY]

folks please knock it off with the back and forth, both of you need to keep to the forum rules they can be found at the top of the forum.