Does anyone know if it is possible to change the distance at which another distant a/c first appears?

I don't normally fly with labels on. But sometimes I'll click them on to see who may be lurking. I can't ID a craft itself, until it is about 950-1000 yards(about 910 meters) away; according to the label ID.

From what I have read and from real world pilot posting..I think one should be able to see, not necessarily identify, another a/c at 3-4 miles.

Is there some file that can be changed to make the grey dot of an a/c, show up when it's further away then it now does?

If you mean the little dots that you can turn on or off with the period key, for me those do show up further away. I have chased them a while and finally turned on labels to find it was a friendly 24 km away! If anything, I wish they would limit them to the 5 to 6 km you're talking about.

Edit: I think I read your original post wrong. Yes, you can press the period key to turn on dots, but the devs should limit the dot's visibility to 7km or less instead of the extreme ranges they have now

So, just did a little test.

Against a clear sky, I can just see a B.E.12 (upper wingspan 36 ft 7.5in) as a dot at 2.5 NM.

Fokker DVII (wingspan 29 ft) at 2.2 NM

Nieuport 17 (wingspan 26 ft 9 in) at 1 NM straight on. Against clouds above almost 2 NM.

Fokker E.III against clouds at 2 NM.


So I think the best background for long distance is white. Against a blue sky you can see some larger/darker aircraft further, but the smaller/lighter (like a white Nieuport) will be harder to see. It may also depend on how far you are from your monitor (I was a bit close).

Didn't try against ground, because I think that's about impossible until you're almost on someone.

The only odd thing I noticed was that setting distance in miles in the workshop between you and your enemy doesn't scale right. I had to set the miles at 10 to get them to start at just over 3 NM.

Very cool that target size actually effects sighting distance - that's not always the case in sims.

Another kudo to OBD.

A solution, maybe not the best though, is to have dot labels activated.
If you go into your Uires file in your main WOFF folder, you can set at the line with dots shadowing to "n" which is no. That means that ingame you won't have the black/yellow dot anymore but just a greyish one which pretty much is looking like distant specks. Since it is just a label and not a real speck you can't really estimate the distance, so you might have your TAC activated, set to aircraft, and set to 4 km. So when you see a speck in the distance, and it's still outside TAC 4km, then you know it is too far to stalk or something. When you also see the AC in your Radar, then you'll know that it's close enough and maybe worth checking.
As I said, maybe not the best solution but it should work.

Thanks for the replies.

I didn't know there was a key to turn the a/c dots on/off at distance. I guess I was inquiring about having the a/c dots become visible as any a/c at around three miles in clear weather, without having the labels on..which I do not like to fly with. At least for me now, they don't become a/c dots before 1000 yards or so.

Was wondering if there is an editable file to change this function?

I've done a few 'tests' like Glubber and beyond about 3 km aircraft will not show up for me; there is literally no dot on the screen because the computer calculates the plane to be smaller than a single pixel. That won't be easy to change. If you fly with a wider FOV (zoomed out one or two steps) then the rendering distance is even worse, maybe down to 2km.

The AI pilots can see planes much further away (they go chasing after planes I can't see until we get much closer). So if you play full-real, you just have to get used to the fact that you're half-way blind compared to the AI pilots. Role-playing that you are the handsome but visually challenged new recruit helps (grin).

Maybe there will be something the devs can tweek someday to give us a bit better long-range vision, who knows? I find that balloons can be spotted at a pretty nice distance so maybe there is something there? And hey, maybe the new super-definition displays of the future will solve all our problems.

I do appreciate the 'label dots' idea, which is a great improvement of full-labels. But don't use them as they are a bit too magical for me (they show through plane parts for example). For me it will have to be 'full-real' and I'll just live with being a bit visually challenged.

When I use labels it shows:

at 8 km - aircraft are dots, buildings and balloons have label IDs

From 3 km to 1.5 km - aircraft show their label as "unknown"

at 1.5 km and less - aircraft show full label IDs

I agree with scout that I wish the labels wouldn't show through the plane structure.

Seems pretty resolution dependent as well.

Here's what I found using only the B.E12s.

1920x1200 - 2.7 NM
1680x1050 - 2.5 NM (my original testing resolution above)
1440x900 - 2.1 NM
1280x768 - 1.8 NM

I am definitely going to be playing at 1920, since the recent optimizations have really helped with performance. The lowest setting loses almost a mile in potential visibility.

Some of us, in this day and age, don't have a choice about running 14x9 since it's dictated by the space available in our corner computer desk...

Meant no offense Dave, and was referring not very specifically to 12x7. I removed that little blurb as I'm aware people just have to use what they can.

No worries.

Yeah I think the goal should be for a single grey pixel to be displayed at about 4 to 5 miles WHEN FULLY ZOOMED OUT

This would be about right for a fighter sized target.

I hate how stuff magically appears when you zoom in. I feel like we are Mr. Magoo right now.

I'm sure there's probably better stuff out there, but this I all I could find in my short search for anything officially related to this topic:



Seems to indicate that a pilot wouldn't likely see a T-33 (39 ft wingspan) til about 3 miles. Found the doc here if you want to print it out and try the 12ft test, though it looks like many times copied copy of a doc, so probably not as useful as the original:

http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/...ocumentID/23090

Looks fine here, no odd dramatic magical "popping" in, very smoothly appears as expected natural.
(also make sure aircraft settings are set on 5 in workshops graphical setting).

Of course it's resolution dependant absolutely - that's what "resolution" means.

If it looks perfect for you at the range you think is perfect someone else will say no it's wrong on his monitor/prefs.

Also note WW1 craft are smaller than WW2+
For example Camel is 5.71 m
Spitfire is from 9.12 up to 9.96 or something

So Camel about 0.6 the length.

Just thought I'd point it out in case some people felt it had something to do more with the game itself. I tend to think it's safer to assume that not everyone knows what some might think everyone should know... ya know?

Hey Pol, is it possible to limit the distance in which the dots show up to say seven nautical miles? The idea for them is great they just seem to show up too far out. Bye dots I mean the label dots when you press the period key.

We should really strive to eliminate "label dots" all together and just have light grey (hard to see) dots rendered at around 4 to 5 miles WHEN ZOOMED OUT FULLY.

Pol-

My original question was, is there a way to individually control the distance that an a/c shows up to the player, without having labels on. Apparently it seems that some feel they show up to far away..I see them first show up, too close. I would like to see an a/c without labels on, clear weather at about 3-5 miles. Just didn't know if there was a file to edit. My resolution is 1920x1080.

Nothing to do with the above, but might be something you want to examine; in experimenting in QC combat to see if my in campaign impressions were accurate, I set up a Turkey Shoot and set the distance at 5 miles in the QC set up screen.

When the QC initiated, the target a/c were there in front of me and showed at a distance of 450 yards not 5 miles. Just wanted to pass that along if there is a glitch or something.

Yeah, I have to set 10 miles in workshop to get enemy planes to start 3.5 miles out.