I don't buy it, Ace. Still, it isn't inconceivable—real pilots can have their heads up their asses, too. (I do have a few hours myself.) Until you post something convincing regarding the comparison of detail perception between simulated high-zoom and actuality, I'm going to stick to what I said: the human eye can see more detail in reality than with max zoom in the sim.

I think you guys are all barking up the wrong tree. The long range sniper shot problem is more than likely due to reduction in complexity of the air craft model at distance. In other words, in order to save quite a bit of processor power, they use a fast and cheap hit box calculation at some predefined distance. You end up getting hits when you normally wouldn't, and those hits are hitting a less detailed model or hit box. Less detail means fewer places for the round to hit, which means a greater chance of getting hit in a vital area. Thus instead of a single bullet hitting and putting a tiny hole in one wing, you end up with the one bullet through the pilot or engine block.

Standard zoom level, or maybe even zoomed out just a tad feels the best for me. It's still kinda like having tunnel vision but everything looks correct visually.

My snap view to the gunsights are zoomed in somewhat though. I also have the zoom funtion mapped to my hat switch on my stick along with a quick reset to no zoom button.

I don't use it much but it does come in handy. Still feels like cheating to me.

That's my point, though. I don't like having to flick the zoom in and out. I'd rather that view distance was extended a little, there was a tiny distance-view LOD for each airccraft within RL visual range. I wouldn't be handicapped because everyone would have the same :p

I also prefer to be zoomed out a little bit from stock setting, and do not use the zoom at all. It just feels more natural perhaps because it mimics the real eye's peripheral vision better. Otherwise I feel cramped, claustrophobic almost.

Well, I know I'm going to get flamed for bringing this up, BUT when offline I turn on enemy icons just while cruising to the front. The "icon" itself simply provides a larger biplane shaped outline at a realistic viewing distance. Once that contact is made I flip icons off.

Back to the original thread topic. The head shake is already there and IMHO any more shake would be too much. Just an opinion.

Related to the core of the issue, I'm currently reading "Gunning for the Red Baron" by Bennet LINK in which he re-visits many of the ORIGINAL tests conducted by the RFC to assess gunnery accuracy by pilots and observers. The bottom line is that literally the broad side of a barn could not be hit beyond 200 yards in A-2-A. Bullet dispersion simply increases too dramatically of course. Now if you were sneaking up on someone and both A/C were not maneuvering, then chances improved greatly at "middle" range, but then why not get closer?

So "unrealistically inaccurate machinegun fire" is in fact realistic!

This book is HIGHLY recommended, almost a must if you want to constructively critique any WWI sim.

Just put some turbulence in the weather settings (even just a little) and the whole opthamology fight disappears.

No, no, no! The machine gun accuracy in Rise of Flight is currently realistic, or approximately so. Don't make the mistake that the Red Baron 3D people made and assume that "inaccurate" means a shotgun spread. Those of us who recall Red Baron 3D will remember that the shotgun spread actually made hitting the enemy easier and compounded the getting-hit-at-long-range problem. For this reason, artificially making the guns less accurate, either directly by adjusting the dispersion to unrealistically inaccurate levels, or indirectly by increasing the amount of turbulence on the server, is not the answer. Even if you don't care about historical accuracy and realism, it's also bad from a gameplay perspective.

Turbulence adds so much to this sim. It's modeled very well and really does cut down on the sniper fire. It's also not unrealistic to have it turned on, since most of the time there is some turbulence in real life. It's more unrealistic to have it turned off all the time...

I didn't mean the turbulence with my "historical accuracy and realism" comment, I meant the gun dispersion. But now that you mention it, no, I don't find the turbulence to be modelled very well. All sims have this problem. It's not at all like the turbulence I've experienced flying real planes. Sim turbulence is a shaking feeling; real turbulence is usually a feeling more like someone is pushing you around, not shaking you.

And BM, (hey that works) what is realistic about being able to lean forward in the pilots seat about two feet that causes the object viewed to more than quadruple in size? I'd guess that the designers didn't develop it to any standards because it's just a neat little "gimmicky" kind of thing that doesn't really matter how accurate it is because it's totally unrealistic in the first place. What is it that's being missed about the fact that when you are viewing an object that's more than about 9 feet from you, moving your head within the confines of a cockpit will have no effect whatsoever on the size of the object viewed. That being said, if someones flying zoomed in they're in a sense-cheating because they're seeing an artificial "amplified" view of the real world. If it doesn't look right-it shouldn't because it isn't real.

The entire "zoom" thing is wrong from the git-go. When I leaned forward to look through my aircrafts gunsight, the only thing I got closer to was the gunsight. If this was modelled correctly (in other words, the way things REALLY are), when you'd zoom in, you'd only get closer to the gunsight and NOT the entire world, as it does in the sim. I can only imagine that the processing power to pull that one off would be substantial and not worth the effort.

Masaq, I fly with my position zoomed out all the way, all the time, partly because I also don't like the sense of tunnel vision and also the loss of my peripheral vision which I think has a lot to do with one's situational awareness. The world also looks more "realistic" to me when I'm zoomed all the way out. I think it actually helps rather than hinders being able to hit targets when zoomed out. As I mentioned earlier, my in-game stats show a 46% hit rate and I've always flown zoomed all the way out.