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Labels: What do you think?


Bahger

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I'm just getting the hang of BS now, and it strikes me that labels remove much of the challenge from this sim. So much of the skill involved is in finding targets, identifying them and destroying them within visual, but stand-off range (in the case of ATGMs, anyway). Labels make so much of this process redundant. What are your thoughts and do most/some of you switch them off in campaign missions?

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It depends how you take game - if you wanna just fly and fun why not turn on labels. But if you want fly, fun and more real turn it off like I do and I enjoy this.

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GG is right - online labels are off pretty much as a matter of course, and people seem to routinely turn them off in the belief that it is more realistic (or I suspect in some cases just to feel more "hard core"), but it's an interesting question that has produced PAGES of debate in the FC forum in the past.

 

At the default configuration, labels do make it too easy to see targets/threats & swing the advantage way too far in favour of the player.

On the other hand, the graphical limitations of displays, and the limited field of view in game both seriously hamper the players situational awareness in a way that is also quite unrealistic.

 

The labels in BS (LO & FC) are configurable and it is possible to edit the visual form, range of appearance and colour of the labels to reflect whatever you believe "realistic" to be.

There are several threads in this and the FC forum where people have posted their suggestions if you're interested.

Cheers.

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When I first started with DCS wondered the same thing.

Fortunately for me it was a combination of laziness (never found the binding) and defaults (out of the box defaults) which resultet in that I never saw any targets with labels.

 

Basicly after a few days of flying I never noticed that I lacked any labels anymore, it was second nature to investigate and identify targets naturally.

 

I'd advice anyone to take the same aproach. I've never looked back after that ... :)

The mind is like a parachute. It only works when it's open | The important thing is not to stop questioning

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Agreed with Panzertard. There are some settings to be tweaked (and I did that in FC) that lets you use labels in a way to compensate for drawbacks in how computer screens work, but in the end I decided that it was just way too much of an eyesore and never used them in DCS.

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On the other hand, the graphical limitations of displays, and the limited field of view in game both seriously hamper the players situational awareness in a way that is also quite unrealistic.

 

I always found that LOFC's zoom function sort-of ameliorated the graphical problem of seeing objects at a distance. Of course, zoom itself is not realistic, but neither is an object like a tank occupying one pixel on a monitor. To me, zoom makes me feel like I've got a set of eyes that work. Can zoom be linked to moving forward in the cockpit like in LOFC?

 

BTW, I don't use labels in either.

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Except that your eyes have a 200 degree FOV even when concentrating on a specific object, and when you're zoomed in you have - what - a 5 degree FOV ?

 

Because I've had to keep having to install new versions & i'm too lazy to keep editing the file I am also playing with labels off when actually playing, but while I agree with EtherealN that it looks better without labels, that's exactly what it is - it looks better, it's no more, and probably less realistic in terms of SA than a set of custom labels....

 

 

Wow - I wrote all that and then I saw JG14 SMIL's comment & for a moment there the force of his argument had me thinking that I had it all wrong...

but I decided in the end he just hadn't quite convinced me.


Edited by Weta43
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Cheers.

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Minimal labels work for me- given that no graphics that we have available ATM can give you a fraction of what you'd perceive in RL, there seems no point to me in making it unfair on myself.

I have it set to little brown or grey dots to popup within 5 km, not intrusive or terribly fake.

In the end, game settings depend on what you enjoy in the game- I enjoy flying a 90 minute mission, don't enjoy flying the same 90 minute mission over and over because I never find one of the targets.

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