Hi guys, I'm hardly new to flying sims, but I guess my very limited multiplayer experience might make me look like a noob when you shoot me down.

I have a few questions in regards to RoF:

I'm using TrackIR to look around and lean in to get a better view down my sights when shooting, but is there any kind of snap-zoom? Right now zoom in/out is a very slow tedious camera move that greatly imapirs my ability to track a target from behind my guns to around me if my cam is all zoomed in and takes forever to zoom out again. I'm looking for IL2-style zoom tight/normal/wide cam setting buttons.

Next,

I prefer to have aircraft labels off when dogfighting, but I am finding it nearly impossible to see aircraft without them. Is there a key to cycle the labels on/off? And how are you supposed to notice a plane against a busy background or shadows etc? I have a 24 inch screen running at 1920x1200 and I can't see a plane unless it's almost on top of me or highlit against the sky.

Which brings me to my next problem, aircraft recognition. I know I should memorize the silhouettes better, but it takes too long to get close enough to see shape or markings before I realize I was closing with a friendly.

I'm assuming in real life it is much easier to see aircraft with actual depth perception (It'll be great when we get 3-d effects like the new polarized glasses movies) and 'wider' lense of your eye and greater peripheral. I'm just not sure just how much more 'realistic' it is to have labels off when there's no way I'd be as blind as I am to spotting craft in real life.

Anybody have any tricks to spotting/identifying planes without labels?

Not much of a tip but it's the best I've got at the moment. If he shoots at you or looks like he's trying to get into position to, he's probably an enemy.

You can change the rate of zoom using the sliders in the ROF launcher. Go to the camera tab and move up the slider for FOV. Ive got mine set to half.

I find this way i can zoom in and pick out targets better. Still not easy mind you but it helps.

As for reconition, the Fokker has a shorter lower wing (as youve no doubt noticed) the allied fighters tend to have longer but equal wings, that how i tell them apart anyway lol.

Sometimes i pick up a albatros by mistake, but the curved tail give them away.

If you set Lables to on, you can toggle them off with the "I" key.

Polarized glass movie? Do you have a link to that?

As for spotting. There really is no way to tell what type the plane is at a distance. You need to get in close before you can id planes. It helps to know positions and patrols of friendlies but with the current setup that is not possible. You mainly just have to make assumptions based on trajectory and altitude to determine friendly/foe.

By polarized glasses, I mean like new 3D movies like Pixar's "Up", Coraline or Polar Express. The technology is pretty simple.. the screen would render twice as many images per second, at slightly diffrent camera angles, that a set of polarized glasses filter out to each individual eye. It makes the scene pop in 3d, making a clear and obvious depth distance betwen objects. It would be amazing for flight sims. I can't link to it since the effect needs.. you know, proper hardware and glasses

here's the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-D_film (skip down to the modern revival bit)

lol we are going well OT here, but ive actually seen (and watched) 3D TV, that doesnt require glasses.

Crazy stuff!

Numpad - (and stick buttom 5) zooms out, Numpad + (and stick buttom 6) zooms in. You should have received a fold out card with the key commands and joystick buttons.

I zoom in all the time to ID other planes. But only very briefly or my SA is screwed.

As mentioned, there are what we used to call in the Army "discriminators," physical characteristics that are distinct and exclusive to an aircraft or vehicle type. If it has a shorter lower wing, it's a DVII. If it has four sets of vertical struts it's a SPAD. And so on.

HT

Stop using labels.



No, really. You'll get better over time. I've been playing without labels since I got RoF (playing @ 1680x1050 on a 20" screen) and I don't find it THAT difficult to spot planes. I've mapped zoom to joystick buttons and it works fairly well for me.

A little 'trick': don't constantly pan your view around. Pan to a position (like 90°left), then stop and observe for a few seconds, then pan to another position etc... spotting a little dot while the dot, your aircraft AND your view is moving is a tad difficult.

Right.. but the zooming is painfully slow. It takes about two-three seconds to zoom in, then another two-three seconds out again. Unless that speed's specific to mapping it to my hat switch.

As mentioned, you can speed the process up using that FOV slider.

I think visibility is very well done in this sim, its the first sim that I dont have to reduce resolution to spot bogies against the ground...
I can feel myself becoming a fanboy of this little sim if they ever get MP off the ground.


V

Spiffy, since I'm not seeing an acknowledgement (forgive me if I've missed something), I get the feeling you may be overlooking Squid's comment; setting a comfortable zoom speed is to my mind essential to successfully maintaining situational awareness.

In the ROF launcher, select the 'Settings' button, then the 'Camera' tab. Use the 'Cockpit camera FOV' slider to set the zoom speed.

FWIW I too use the HAT switch for zoom, in at the 0 and out at the 180 degree points. I have my FOV slider set to just about halfway as Squid does. Experiment to find your comfort zone. It's kind of time consuming, but well worth the effort.

You've seen the results of a too-slow zoom, too fast is jarring and cuts off your peripheral vision. Set to your preference, you can bump it as needed and it soon becomes second nature.

[MF] Gunloon

Agreed. Since I use TrackIR, I don't have snap views, but I'm getting better at focusing on one area at a time, determining if there's anything significant, then moving on to another area. Especially high and low six!

Identifying planes...hard to explain that in nuts-and-bolts terms.

I've been a pioneer/WW I/ Golden Age/ WW II era fan most of my life, so every plane is distinctly different to me and has its own personality. It's like trying to explain the mechanics of how you spot a good friend's face in a crowd, or know at a glance the girl you just saw a glimpse of on TV is an actress you admire. After a while, with time and experience, well, you just...know

The distinctive shape of the D.VII's rudder or its 'elephant ear' ailerons. The torpedolike lines of the Albatros. Others have pointed out some salients to look for too, but in the big picture, it's the personality of a plane you're looking at that will be the identifier.

Ground targets is a different story for me. I freely admit I'll turn on icons to find or orient myself with ground targets, they're little specks till you're close, and if you're in one of the Nieuports you've got no compass (as yet...hope hope) so I can either do that or use the so-far horrible and framerate-killing map to locate them.

Even then I'll turn icons off once I've located the target in a frame of reference. Labels actually obscure the details since the resolution in ROF is good...all the more reason to not get used to using them for aircraft, since they just look like a colored block and you're liable to miss cues as to their aspect or precise direction.

[MF] Gunloon

Thanks guys, I'm going to play with those sliders tonight. I thought they meant the actual camera lense FOV, and since it seemed right already I thought it was going to give me telescopic sight and didn't play with it.

I suppose I'll have to memorize the silhouettes better. But it's also an issue of how far out I can see a plane. The fact labels appear earlier than I can actually see the geometry of a plane makes me wonder if that's NeoQB giving the player a helping hand or acknowledging the game can't let you see a plane as soon as you'd spot a glint of something in real life. (that and the whole lack of depth issue, but that's a limitation of playing on a flat screen!)

Something that needs to be fixed is the draw distance. Aircraft are invisible at any distance past a km or so. As soom as I've tangled with a fighter in the Bomber Escort mission the bombers are gone, for the most part never to be found again. Hopefuly we'll get a fix; something along the lines of Oleg's often-derided, but ultimately successful, 'little dots'.

Yep the issue is as old as combat flight sims.

How to spot the enemy? RL your eyes will give a resolution far in excess of what your computer can do. That added to peripheral vision, wider field of views, and ease of focus means you wuold be able to spot planes further out and more easily.

We are limited by our hardware, Icons make it easier. But most Severs ive seen have this option turned off (which i happen to agree with) so its best to get used to i know instead of trying the hardway online.

Personally if i cant see anything I climb whilst checking my six lol