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

[MoleUK]

12 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

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”

Auto is not off.

And several other of the most popular servers appear to be leaning towards letting users control it for now.

What people did was incessently complain about DCS spotting being atrocious. Someone even got so fed up with it that they made a mod, that mod was eventually folded into the game.

The spotting being awful for years is how we got here. Looking at all the feedback since the change (as early as it is), the vast majority seem happier with the new system.

[speed-of-heat]

31 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

No what many of us did was complain about an inability to see the oppfor… 

Edited December 28, 2024 by speed-of-heat

[SharpeXB]

56 minutes ago, MoleUK said:

Auto is not off.

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.

1 hour ago, MoleUK said:

Someone even got so fed up with it that they made a mod, that mod was eventually folded into the game.

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. 

39 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

No what many of us did was complain about an inability to see the oppfor… 

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. 

[Tippis]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

This new feature has only been around for about a year. What did people do before this?

  They exploited the old system.

You know this because you were one of them, and your screenshots of the excessive visual range some people could get out of the system where others didn't was a crucial part in nailing shut the coffin on that system. Ironically - as always - because you tried to argue that this excessive visibility meant the system was working fine and actually people just needed to git gud. The fact that you could see things that far out and that this was obviously nonsensical and unfair just didn't hit home for some reason... that we can all guess.

Then you realised that the same system could be exploited to your disadvantage, and suddenly it was the worst thing ever and you campaigned hard to have it changed. Remember that?

33 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Auto at least prevents the easy exploit in the above example.

It really doesn't, but not for the reason you want to suggest. It doesn't prevent "the easy exploit" because your imaginary exploit doesn't actually exist. So there is nothing for the setting to prevent. Quite simple, really, and as such you will undoubtedly not be able to grasp what is happening.

33 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Yes but as it turned out this didn’t work as well or as easily as was assumed.

Actually, it did. That was why it was so popular and why even "serious" servers concerned about game fairness and integrity would shut off IC to make sure it was still possible to use. The problem we have now is that only the basic concept of that mod was integrated into the game, but they skipped over any of the tweaking that had done with it and instead started from scratch. To be fair to ED, though, they kind of had to because of how it now integrated in the actual rendering loop.

33 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

This topic seemed to be really dormant for a long time following the Model Enlargement mess.

No, it wasn't.

You know this because you were consistently part of the topic, trying to shut down any conversation that threatened the new system and your ability to exploit it. It's pretty trivial to dig up the 8+ year-long thread of Why485 and others trying to explain basic graphics and gameplay to you, starting with how and why the impostor system didn't work and how and why the new dots were only barely better.

The topic wasn't dormant. It was just not going your way at any time and you desperately tied to shut down the conversation. That obviously didn't work because here we are. You're still not getting your excessive-visibility exploit back, and if it turns out that one of the settings re-enable it, guess what will happen? That setting will be banned from MP if not outright removed from the game. So be careful (once again) what you wish for.

Edited December 28, 2024 by Tippis

[draconus]

2 hours ago, Tippis said:

Hence why we need dots —

...
Hence why we need scaling —

tldr, maybe you need, not DCS.

[Tippis]

1 minute ago, draconus said:

tldr, maybe you need, not DCS.

DCS needs it too if it wants to be a good simulation of air combat.

Your dislike for proven systems that solve this whole problem is not sufficient reason to keep DCS in the dark ages.

[draconus]

13 minutes ago, Tippis said:

Your dislike for proven systems that solve this whole problem is not sufficient reason to keep DCS in the dark ages.

Your blind faith in the old tech that doesn't fix anything as "the only solution" is interesting too.

[Tippis]

5 minutes ago, draconus said:

Your blind faith in the old tech that doesn't fix anything as "the only solution" is interesting too.

It fixes exactly what it is supposed to fix, and while the original is old:ish, it's still aeons ahead of the even more antiquated system DCS is trying to use and iterate on. That system has been abandoned by everyone for very good reasons.

If you can come up with something more feasible and easy to implement, please elaborate.

The fact that you call this "the only solution" in response to a post that explains that it isn't is interesting too...

[BIGNEWY]

folks please stay on topic. 

thank you 

[Bounti30]

I am still in the testing phase on differents distances, maps, weathers, objects and planes.
It seems that option 1 is the closest to what we could see in 2.8
For the rest I continue to try.
But in any case, thank you ED we can make our choice

Great job

 

[SparrowLT]

Dont know if there were big changes but now in Enigma/Heatblur im spotting way more aircraft than before.. not just dots.. can even see rendered aircraft under 5nm..or at least more than a pixel

[MoleUK]

On 12/30/2024 at 1:04 AM, SparrowLT said:

Dont know if there were big changes but now in Enigma/Heatblur im spotting way more aircraft than before.. not just dots.. can even see rendered aircraft under 5nm..or at least more than a pixel

Yea I do wonder if more tweaks were done in terms of transition points, feels great right now regardless.

Edited December 31, 2024 by MoleUK

[YoYo]

After a week of fun I will say and repeat as a VR user. Great job. I have set to AUTO for Quest (although I use quite a large upscaling to about 3100x3100pxt by eye, so the resolution is quite large), I didn't even need to check other options, but now everything is ok. Targets in the air and on the ground scale great and it finally started to look normal and realistic. Zooming the image Im able to see the target from quite a distance (spyglass) but this is ok with such a large zoom for VR, but without it it appears in the range of 10-6 nm, which is realistic. For those who don't like Auto - we still have the option of 1x or 2x pixel or OFF so everyone should find the right option for themselves. Big thanks ED for this work, the end of the year is 100% satisfaction in this respect :)! 

I'll add that I've been quite critical of the changes for people in VR that have come over the last year and I've complained quite a bit and the topic is very familiar to me, so all the more respect to ED for this work !

 

Edited January 1 by YoYo

[LizardKingYB]

I play in 2D and the last changes better but it depends on our options. My PC in MSAA 4x couldn't normally draw far clouds and in DLAA weird ghosting and TPOD don't see the heat signature of targets... But contacts are now visible Better.

[PawlaczGMD]

Feedback from me on Pimax Crystal : 2 pixels setting works well. I would say it's close to ideal. The dots are not too large like a few updates ago when everyone cried about huge bricks, but also not impossible to spot at 1 pixel. I can comfortably spot fighter targets at a few (<5) nm, but not beyond that. 

Auto seems to be the same as before this update: Extremely hard to spot for me. I will be using 2 pixels for now.

[Lixma 06]

One unintended consequence of the dots...

I set up a mission against a bunch of bare-metal Mig-15s. Without dots you can spot/track them reasonably well against the ground as long as they're in sun-light. But with dots they are effectively camouflaged until they are close enough for the rest of the airframe to peek from under the dot.

[SharpeXB]

2 minutes ago, Lixma 06 said:

One unintended consequence of the dots...

I set up a mission against a bunch of bare-metal Mig-15s. Without dots you can spot/track them reasonably well against the ground as long as they're in sun-light. But with dots they are effectively camouflaged until they are close enough for the rest of the airframe to peek from under the dot.

Yeah that’s a pretty obvious weakness to using dots. Without them you can easily see bright aircraft against dark backgrounds like the water. The whole system is a very poor solution IMO. 

[Parkour]

@BIGNEWY and Eagle Dynamics.  Thank you for adding the ability to turn off the spotting dots for VR users.

My squad and I have been flying again since the patch and we love it again. We have actually started buying modules as well.  You can actually see the number increase of players again in SteamDB player counts since this patch as I'm sure many other VR users have returned.

Thank you for listening to me rant and be a squeaky wheel. Thank you for giving us our immersion back.

Parkour out.

 

[draconus]

1 hour ago, Parkour said:

we love it again

Time to change avatar I guess?

[BIGNEWY]

1 hour ago, Parkour said:

@BIGNEWY and Eagle Dynamics.  Thank you for adding the ability to turn off the spotting dots for VR users.

My squad and I have been flying again since the patch and we love it again. We have actually started buying modules as well.  You can actually see the number increase of players again in SteamDB player counts since this patch as I'm sure many other VR users have returned.

Thank you for listening to me rant and be a squeaky wheel. Thank you for giving us our immersion back.

Parkour out.

 

Great to hear you have seen improvement, we hope you enjoy your flights. 

best regards

bignewy

[speed-of-heat]

On 1/12/2025 at 9:42 PM, SharpeXB said:

Yeah that’s a pretty obvious weakness to using dots. Without them you can easily see bright aircraft against dark backgrounds like the water. The whole system is a very poor solution IMO. 

actually it just needs one change ...luminosity to reflect that  (pun intended) functionally changing the colour of the dot based upon the albedo between the observer and the target so if its shiny and over dark make the dot white... 

[SharpeXB]

5 hours ago, speed-of-heat said:

actually it just needs one change ...luminosity to reflect that  (pun intended) functionally changing the colour of the dot based upon the albedo between the observer and the target so if its shiny and over dark make the dot white... 

A flaw that’s inherent to dots is that they aren’t able to show the target color. They can’t show the difference between a light colored aircraft against the sea or a dark camouflaged one against terrain. In some cases (without dots) you can practically ID a target by its color alone. 

[okopanja]

1 minute ago, SharpeXB said:

A flaw that’s inherent to dots is that they aren’t able to show the target color. They can’t show the difference between a light colored aircraft against the sea or a dark camouflaged one against terrain. In some cases (without dots) you can practically ID a target by its color alone. 

Luminosity(as e.g. a glint of Sun reflection as I posted earlier) can play a great difference when it comes to the ranges at which you can spot the thing.

This can be best seen in morning or eveming if airplane is positioned so it reflects light toward observer. There is no way you can miss this, looks like a very bright star in sky.

[SharpeXB]

11 minutes ago, okopanja said:

Luminosity(as e.g. a glint of Sun reflection as I posted earlier) can play a great difference when it comes to the ranges at which you can spot the thing.

This can be best seen in morning or eveming if airplane is positioned so it reflects light toward observer. There is no way you can miss this, looks like a very bright star in sky.

It would be great if the game could do reflections like that in a realistic manner. But again dots wouldn’t be able to do this.

Edited January 16 by SharpeXB

[speed-of-heat]

42 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

A flaw that’s inherent to dots is that they aren’t able to show the target color. They can’t show the difference between a light colored aircraft against the sea or a dark camouflaged one against terrain. In some cases (without dots) you can practically ID a target by its color alone. 

A dot is a pixel… or a combination of pixels, the can literally be any colour that can be produced on a monitor or headset… but let at least start with something that improves the situation.