Isnt zooming on the HUD kind of cheating?

[Wags]

IRL they are attacked successfully from 0.5nm.

 

Correct, for a modern tank when attacking its top or rear armor. In Beta 4, it will be possible to kill a tank in one pass under these conditions.

 

Also, CBUs are much more deadly now.

[Weaponz248]

Cool beans! Thats good to know Wags!

[power5]

Much easier to pick up a target when at much less than 90 degree angle. I have never seen a A10 video of practice strafing being done from complete vertical angles.

[Invisibull]

IRL they are attacked successfully from 0.5nm.

 

I'll take you at your word on that, but in beta 3, waiting to open fire at 3000 ft range all but guarantees you'll take damage. Perhaps it's due to the inability to sneak up on tanks in this sim? Not sure.

[Geskes]

Responding to OP question:

 

A couple of years ago I was an infantryman (S6 with dutch armored infantry batallion). You have difficulty spotting infantry from your A-10. I promise you, a trained infantry unit can be hidden in a say, 200ft by 200ft patch of terrain and you would be standing right next to it observing the area with the naked eye and you wouldn't find a single guy. Nada. This in clear weather daylight condition.

 

Any prepared infantry position will have top cover. No way you are going to spot such a position from the air without IR equipment. Even then it is hard, modern combat gear reduce IR signature trough special treatment of the fabrics.

 

Even when unit is moving and they have proper camouflage for the terrain type they are operating in, you will not spot them from the air with the naked eye. IR sensors will at this point.

 

The only way you are going to spot infantry from the air with naked eye is when they are firing and you can see the muzzle flashes and / or tracers or they are taking fire and you can judge position from friendly fire on the position.

 

As for how A-10s engage armor targets IRL with gun there is great reading about A-10 operations like William Smallwood's "Warthog" detailing A-10 operations during desert storm. It has accurate first person accounts of actual pilots. It's a real treat for DCS A-10 pilots.

 

As for zoom, yes I don't use it because indeed you could argue it compensates for being behind computerscreen, but you can zoom in so far that you have a superduper optical scope giving spotting ability that a real pilot doesnt have. The whole episode of finding /spotting targets is kind of lost which in reality is a big chunk of the mission just as it is in sim.

[Yellonet]

Zoom = no cheat

Labels = cheat

[Wolverine]

When playing single player, there are no cheats whatsoever. Only personal choice.

[Avatar72]

Geskes,

I was making a smilar but more general argument earlier regarding infantry not sitting out in the open when being straffed upon. Clearly this shouldn't happen.

Franky, not seeing the target doesnt bother me so much. It makes sense of course. It just in the mission I was playing, I was expeted to hit 100% of the targets...including infantry. So blowing away 800 rounds of the cannon on several passes looking for small little camo men doesnt seem to be a smart strategic move even IRL.

I'd chalk it up more on bad mission design. I hope this is a common mission goal in the campaign(s).

I'm was also starting to wonder if the HE radius is far enough in game. I havent seen any complaints about it so I guess its fine.

[Gearbox]

I also don't like to zoom, especially on my HUD. I go into the IFFCC menu page and turn off the CCIP occult. I lock my target with the Targeting POD and I switch to CCIP mode. I put my gun cross over the targeting pod diamond, engage PAC 1 and fire.

 

I tried doing this and it still hides the diamond when I put the gun pipper over it. I'm on Beta 3 if that matters.

[mig29]

the benefit of the best graphics engine in the world.

 

And the best graphics engine also renders infinite frames per second. :)

[kylania]

. :)

[Kuky]

. :)

 

Like I said... he is flying straight and level and hands off the stick.. searching for targets... he doesn't manouver to engage them using bunoculars, so your point is useless :music_whistling:

[kylania]

he doesn't manouver to engage them using bunoculars, so your point is useless

 

Well, my point was to share a nice video of pilots using binoculars and methods of locating targets in RL that are applicable to in game.

 

With regards to using zoom during an attack being "cheating", I refer you the second pilot in the video I linked describing how during an attack run you do devote all your attention to the target:

 

Your focus then, all of a sudden is, into this one little area that you're looking at. As you roll down - pilots call it "the chute" - and when you roll in to employ, that's it, the whole world melts into this little area

 

That to me sounds like zooming during an attack run is not only not cheating but is in fact far more realistic than not zooming during an attack run.

 

So really, not using zoom would be cheating. :smilewink::pilotfly:

[Echonomix]

I zoom in during startup to see all the instruments clearly. Once the engines and systems are up, I hit '5' followed by 'enter' on the keypad. That resets the view and zoom to default. Then I zoom in just enough to see the hud a little better...maybe one or two quick taps on '*" and I don't touch the zoom again unless I need to do some more adjustments to some stuff inside the cockpit.

 

Now just to be clear, using track ir and leaning forward is fine, because that isn't zooming. But IRL, they use the targeting pod and set it up before an attack. They also attack only if a wingman or some other spotter can quickly check their hits and to look for possible aaa or sam launch. And of course binocs at safe distance. Read the book by William Smallwood if you really want more info. Good luck using binocs in dark, while flying low, looking for sam sites. Those guys didn't have the targeting pod back then. They used the mav seeker for a very narrow view and their eyes/binoculars.

[Weta43]

Zoom = no cheat

Labels = cheat

 

That's a big call :-)

I'd say that labels as configured by default probably make it too easy to see things of interest, but edited labels that just make up for the fact that it's harder to see things on a monitor than IRL - probably not.

 

In the center of the attached image (383 from a very early build - excuse the graphic bugs :-) is an A-10 that is 800m from the camera. Do you really think you'd miss an A-10 at 800m with the naked eye if you were staring directly at it ?

Imagine that image without the label - where's the A-10, and where's the 'cheating' in using the label ?

 

Same with the shot from the cockpit (719). Relatively realistic FOV (if not seating position), 3xSu-27 at just under 2Km away (not much more than a decent runway), and without the labels they'd be invisible. With them they're 'findable', but only identifiable by type, not coalition.

 

And the shot of the avenger (877) - you've got 'something' in the air at 4Km, an A-10 at 3.5, and several indistinguishable things on the ground at some distance that I guess is 4Km or so. None of them sick out like dog's b*lls, they're just findable if you look in the right place.

 

 

 

but here's a reference of about what you'd see from 1 nautical mile above

 

I don't think that imag fairly represents what you can see from 1nm up.

I don't know about you, but for some time whenever I fly I try to see how what I can see IRL at altitude compares with what's in flight sims.

Invariably, I come to the conclusion that - at least for things either moving or not camoflaged - properly configured labels are more realistic than no labels.

At 10,000 feet you can see cars & see trucks quite easily. At 20 000 feet you can still see a surprising amount - if you know where to look :-)

[kylania]

Where do you configure labels from? As far as I can tell they are on or off?

[Kuky]

Well, my point was to share a nice video of pilots using binoculars and methods of locating targets in RL that are applicable to in game.

 

Your point was to show that pilots do use binoculars... and I agree, they do... but again, they use them so SEARCH for targets... not while attacking them :music_whistling:

 

With regards to using zoom during an attack being "cheating", I refer you the second pilot in the video I linked describing how during an attack run you do devote all your attention to the target:

 

That to me sounds like zooming during an attack run is not only not cheating but is in fact far more realistic than not zooming during an attack run.

Oh please... so from "devoting all attention" you translate into " they use binoculars"? :doh: As a comparison how about you try driving on a road while using binoculars and you'll see very quickly why you wouldn't want to do that in aircraft while flying towards the ground... or for the sake of loosing and peripherial vision which might help you seeing someting else shooting at you? Edited November 29, 2010 by Kuky

[nomdeplume]

Where do you configure labels from? As far as I can tell they are on or off?

You need to modify one of the .lua files, probably labels.lua somewhere. Never bothered to do it myself so I'm not sure exactly where/what to edit.

 

It would be nice if more realistic labels was an option exposed through the GUI, though we could have endless arguments about what would constitute a more 'realistic' label. :D

[kylania]

Oh please... so from "devoting all attention" you translate into " they use binoculars"? :doh:

 

What's with your binoculars fetish? :huh: I translate from "devoting all attention" to "zooming is realistic" not "pilots use binoculars constantly and in all things". They only use binocs when searching. Everyone knows and understands that. No one is disputing that. No one is saying they use binoculars while running in on a target.

 

However pilots do focus their attention and vision on the target. Pilots do lose a lot of peripheral vision while attacking, because they are "zoomed" in on their target. That's why the wingman stays up and behind, to watch for attacks on the lead since they are not looking at anything but the target.

 

The point is that zooming is not cheating, as shown in various ways in this thread, it has absolutely nothing to do with binoculars.:joystick:

[Kuky]

Sorry to disapoint but I don't have a fetish as you put it :D Like I said already zooming in is alright when searching for targets flying wings level etc as it can replicate real pilots using binoculars, but not when people do straffing runns like many do and that's my whole point and why I consider it unrealistic (or "cheat") feature virtual pilots have and use.

[Weta43]

Where do you configure labels from? As far as I can tell they are on or off?

 

nomdeplume is right - labels.lua in config\view

 

There's some explanatory comments which should make editing easy enough - only extra comments I'd make are that you don't have to use all the lines, less is probably better - so for example if you were to change the entry for airborne objects to :

 

AirFormat = {}

AirFormat[150] = ""

AirFormat[3500] = "%N%n%D"

AirFormat[5500] = "%D"

AirFormat[6500] = "*"

 

you'd get an indication that something is there at 6.5km, that something is there and how far away it is at 5.5km, what it is & how far away it is at 3.5km, and makes you just look for the thing at 150m, and that if you make both sides the same colour you're not getting any info at a distance that you oculdn't get from seeing "something"

 

I use :

ColorAliesSide = {175, 0, 175}

ColorEnemiesSide = {175, 0, 175}

but that might be a bit bright for you...

[SonofEil]

Wow! That's a brilliant way to configure labels!

I've always kept them off because there's too much info when it's a dense enemy formation, hindering my ability to actually see the enemy.

I might start experimenting with labels now.

 

(btw, I still think labels=cheating, zoom=1/2 cheating)

 

:-)

[26-J39]

Forgive my ignorance but labels? Come on.. Might as well play game mode..

Not trying to stir any pots here but i really don't understand why labels would be used in a DCS sim.. :huh:

[Boberro]

Sometimes you wanna relax totally... go to Digi's server and look.

Server has labels but there is quite nice from time to time :)

[Steel Jaw]

I agree labels are over the line, zooming no.