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Glowing/Highlighed ground unit


Modulus

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I think spotting ground targets is one of the most difficult aspects of the game.

There's labels, but it seems like over kill if you just want a little extra help finding targets.

 

I'm suggesting the addition of a "Unit Glow" slider that would control an amount of "glow" added to all ground units.

The glow doesn't need to be an actual light glow, but some kind of effect that make units visually "pop" more from the ground clutter.

 

So you could turn the "Unit Glow" setting higher or lower depending on your preference, which would increase of decrease the glow amount or turn it off completely.

My hope is that this would ease the transitions from using labels to not using labels.


Edited by Modulus
Removing the word "cheat"; it was distracting from the topic
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I was actually thinking about this same thing earlier today. People have mentioned labels aren't necessarily unrealistic since in actuality you'd be able to see much higher resolution and glints of light of the metal and glass of enemy vehicles, etc. I can't bring myself to use labels, but still have trouble finding enemy units, so I think an interesting feature would be something like a highly-reflective array of sprites superimposed over "active" objects like tanks and cars and planes, which would catch the light from far away but become gradually more transparent as you approached, so that it would have disappeared by the time you could really resolve any detail on the object.

That might end up looking tacky, but I think if it were subtle enough it'd be both helpful and acceptably realistic.

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Good ideas. We need more of these. +1 to both of you.

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so you think labels are cheating, but this isn't? look, in a single player game, there's no such thing as cheating. it's human against ai, so you already have the advantage. if you feel you need more help, turn on the help. it's programmed into the game by the developer for this purpose. now you ask for this new form of help when one already exists that serves the same purpose.

 

and what happens afterwards, as soon as you turn it off, units will no longer glow. how do you spot them then? it's the exact same thing as labels, don't be ashamed to use it.

 

I was actually thinking about this same thing earlier today. People have mentioned labels aren't necessarily unrealistic since in actuality you'd be able to see much higher resolution and glints of light of the metal and glass of enemy vehicles, etc. I can't bring myself to use labels, but still have trouble finding enemy units, so I think an interesting feature would be something like a highly-reflective array of sprites superimposed over "active" objects like tanks and cars and planes, which would catch the light from far away but become gradually more transparent as you approached, so that it would have disappeared by the time you could really resolve any detail on the object.

That might end up looking tacky, but I think if it were subtle enough it'd be both helpful and acceptably realistic.

 

in real life, the terrain is more detailed too. the foliage is also more dense. it's actually much harder to spot vehicles from high fliers in real life than it is in the game.

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Labels are totally unrealistic, in real life it might be possible to see another aircraft further away than in the sim, but you still have to identify it and work out whether it is a threat. Whilst you are concentrating on one in front of you there could be many others that you miss. With labels on, they all have a big banner saying here I am and Im a bad guy! but Im a fuel truck so you can ignore me but Im a AAA and Im a MiG 29. Im a f riendly truck convoy so whatver you do dont stick that CBU on me.

The amount of blue on blue incidents that happen IRL is further evidence if any was needed...

 

I like the glints of light from reflections idea though. Obviously only in the day time.


Edited by bluepilot76

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lol, if you consider labels cheating or unrealistic, then you should delete the game forever after the first SAM got you :) IMO, labels spoil the immersion with all the text spamming the screen, but i really like the idea of glowing units and brightness of it. Or at least a square or a dot on a unit. So you know there's a unit down there, but you still have to identify it and destroy it. It's complicated even with visible units.

 

I think there's a mod somewhere where you only get a pixel, a tiny dot that points out a unit, but no text that clutters the screen and spoiling the immersion.

 

I'd call this approach putting the fun into fundamentalism. Where' you spare yourself the troubles (and anger, for that matter) of finding stuff and go directly to combat, but still in a highly accurate/complex sim environment.


Edited by PlainSight
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One of my first and only times online, I took off, headed for the WP, saw a convoy going a long a road, bit of a battle going on, fired all my mavs at it....got kicked for killing friendlys. Oops! time to go back to vehicle identification school.

 

Yeah I fly without labels as much as possible, spend more time not firing at things than firing at things. Trying to figure out what the heck is going on. Just like in RL I suppose. I just find it too much of an arcade game with the labels on. Anyway each to his own. I like the idea of labels being a bit more scalable or realistic (glints..) although pretty sure that most combat stuff is designed to not have much shiny stuff to avoid those glints amap.

 

I might turn them on briefly just to have a hint about what that bandit is that my wingman knows all about. Then I turn them off and probably get shot down.lol

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I like this idea. Arma 2 did something similar, with an option for faint glowing "halo" around units that directed attention to them; it fades as you get closer. In Arma 2 it was desperately needed, as the enemy had a tendency to spot you at distances reflecting "real life" (200-300 meters in the open), while the limitations of the computer screen meant you generally couldn't see them until 100-150 meters. It's something of an equalizer.

 

Falcon 4.0 had another interesting workaround with the scaling sliders; it essentially made units larger the farther away you were, so their apparent size was still enough to spot them (IE, not a single pixel).

 

Another way might be to include a subroutine that increases the contrast of the enemy unit the farther away you are: IE, if it is a dark green tank on a dark green field, from 5 km away it currently appears as a dark green pixel on a dark green field: instead, it could be made to appear as a LIGHT green pixel on a dark green field.

 

I really like the sunlight glints as well. Ideally these would be calculated from the actual raycasts from sun location, but simplification would be fine.

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I just prefer changing your FOV limits so that you effectively have binoculars if you want them. It's much more realistic than labels because real life pilots actually do carry binoculars, and "binoculars" don't tell you automatically if the unit is friendly or enemy. You have to use them while you're holding the aircraft reasonably steady too, unlike labels, and you have to be looking almost directly at your target to see it too (since the FOV is so narrow), again, unlike labels.

 

In single player though, people should just go with whatever is most fun to them.

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*Something* would be nice... The other day I couldn't find the last tank in a formation that JTAC had tasked me to kill, it took 10 minutes of flying around at 500 AGL before he started shooting at me and I tracked him down.. The sucker was hiding in the trees!

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*Something* would be nice... The other day I couldn't find the last tank in a formation that JTAC had tasked me to kill, it took 10 minutes of flying around at 500 AGL before he started shooting at me and I tracked him down.. The sucker was hiding in the trees!

 

Yeah, that's another justification for more obvious units, we completely lack the ability to go "Hey chief, where's the last tank?" "Oh, he's over there."

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