Being new to online play but reading a lot on these froums recently, I was trying out a 109 and read it's best performance was 3-5000m. I was also going to try boom and zoom on AC below me but when I got up there, I couldn't see anything below me. Everynow and then I'd see gunfire but even on full zoom I couldn't see the aircraft.

I do have my view distance set to medium but my PC is old and warty now. How do I b and z when I can't even see the enemy lol?

Can anyone give any tips?

Thanks,

What I do is fly above 6000 meters in the P-51 and if I see that the skies are clear, I zoom down and scan for a few minutes before zooming back up.

The no.1 frustration in this regard is when you spot bandit from 2km or so, then when you come close to a few hundred meters he "disappears". And of course I can spot bandit easier from several km away then if he is under 1km distance.

Another lesson I guess we all had to learn was finding out that the "bogey" you dived on from several kilometers and wasted a lot of your E for was infact your own shadow.

Nothing wastes more kinetic energy than the subsequent collision with your own shadow on winter maps.

I have got similar problems, sometimes I have huge problem seeing planes in my own general area (modest nVidia 6600GT with 25-30 FPS). What helps is actually "knowing" where to look and looking in that area for a longer time, min. 5-10 seconds. Once you see a dot, make sure to take a mental note of the nearest landmarks and its general direction. Makes wonders for the quick re-acquisition, when it blends in temporarily.

I think the camo paintings worked well in RL too, but what we miss is the shine off the metal and glass parts in the distance.

or when you get up high ready for the war and everybody is flying around at >500M.
when you dive on them you either loose track of them, they get shot down before you reach them or you overspeed and have to pull up before getting to them

or you shoot your own shadow...
to make sure im not mistaking an enemy for my shadow i usually do a roll..if the plane rolls syncronized its my shadow

What screen res are you using, Jex? My monitor has a native res of 1600x1200 but I set 1152x864 for IL2 (I read somewhere that that's the res Oleg designed it for). This makes the pixels a little bigger = dots for distant planes are more visible.

quote:

Originally posted by TinyTim:
Another lesson I guess we all had to learn was finding out that the "bogey" you dived on from several kilometers and wasted a lot of your E for was infact your own shadow.

Or a speck of dust on your monitor...

Better LoD for SoW!

quote:

Originally posted by Jex_TE:
Being new to online play but reading a lot on these froums recently, I was trying out a 109 and read it's best performance was 3-5000m. I was also going to try boom and zoom on AC below me but when I got up there, I couldn't see anything below me. Everynow and then I'd see gunfire but even on full zoom I couldn't see the aircraft.

I do have my view distance set to medium but my PC is old and warty now. How do I b and z when I can't even see the enemy lol?

Can anyone give any tips?

Thanks,

I don't think that changing the view distance will help you view aircraft from further away, I think it has more to do with how far away you can see mountains, trees, water, buildings, etc. The reason being that the aircraft get too small to be represented by anything less than a few dots much quicker than larger objects like buildings (but could stand corrected on this if someone knows for sure)

The height you fly for boom and zoom is more connected with the height of your targets, rather than the optimal flying height of your aircraft. If your targets are dog fighting at 100-500 meters altitude, if you are several kilometers above them, you will first of all not be able to see them, and second of all, after shedding that much altitude you will be going way too fast and will have a difficult time making the shot.

I am sure we can argue till were blue in the face on this forum as to the "optimal" height for boom-n-zoom tactics, so experiment and find what you like. For me, I like 500-800m above the targets. Any closer and its too easy for them to fly up and meet you, and any further and you pick up too much speed in the dive and the controls can lose responsiveness, and sighting your target is difficult.

Your right though, often you will see tracers but no planes. The planes are just too far away to make out,so, when you see the tracers, maintain your altitude and fly to that general area keeping your eyes open and scanning around. If you don't see anything and your at 5000m or above the ground there is a good chance that you are simply too far above the action to make it out, so drop some altitude and keep circling looking for tracers, eventually you will start to see some planes, then go for the boom and zoom.

Viewing at large distances is a limitation of playing flight simulators. Some argue that playing with icons on (the text labels above the planes) is, in a sense, more realistic, as it helps to overcome the limitations of the limited viewing resolution on a computers screen.

Stingray

quote:

Originally posted by rnzoli:
Nothing wastes more kinetic energy than the subsequent collision with your own shadow on winter maps.

I have got similar problems, sometimes I have huge problem seeing planes in my own general area (modest nVidia 6600GT with 25-30 FPS). What helps is actually "knowing" where to look and looking in that area for a longer time, min. 5-10 seconds. Once you see a dot, make sure to take a mental note of the nearest landmarks and its general direction. Makes wonders for the quick re-acquisition, when it blends in temporarily.

I think the camo paintings worked well in RL too, but what we miss is the shine off the metal and glass parts in the distance.

I just upgraded my computer from an amd 3000+/6600GT to an E8400/4870 (on the same LCD), which runs perfectly smoothly at full settings. A few hours spent flying on the new computer have made me think that dots are easier to see with full settings, unfortunately. It may also be a nvidia/ATI thing. Dots are shown with higher contrast to their background than I remember, and I don't think I lose sight of so many now.

Oddly you often see distant aircraft better at lower resolutions.

As for shooting your shadow, it was actually used as a deflection shooting training technique by RAAF P40 pilots in the African campaign.

I believe it was first developed by Squadron Leader Clive Caldwell (RAAF 28 kills) and was then adopted as a standard training technique.

I knew that.....ya,.. I was training!

quote:

Originally posted by WTE_Galway:
Oddly you often see distant aircraft better at lower resolutions.

As for shooting your shadow, it was actually used as a deflection shooting training technique by RAAF P40 pilots in the African campaign.

I believe it was first developed by Squadron Leader Clive Caldwell (RAAF 28 kills) and was then adopted as a standard training technique.

Wow, I bet they lost a few pilots doing that!

I'm using the same 1440*900 resolution as before the hardware upgrade. I've tried 1024*768 on another monitor and I couldn't stand it!

For the OP: IL2 draws other aircraft that are too far away to see details of, as four pixel square dots - the lower two are dark grey, the upper two light grey. When you have a monitor that has small pixels (usually the modern high res ones), it becomes harder to spot the dots. You can make the dots larger by lowering your screens resolution, but I don't find this helpful at all on an LCD.

HOWEVER - whilst saying that high resolution makes it harder to see dots is true for similarly sized monitors, it's the size of the pixels (dot pitch), and your distance to the monitor that matters. For differently sized monitors displaying the same resolution, dots will be easier to spot on the larger monitor.

Also - far dots are often much easier to see when you're zoomed out, ie at wide angle view.

quote:

Originally posted by WTE_Galway:
Oddly you often see distant aircraft better at lower resolutions.

Its not odd at all. Smaller resolution means fewer pixels means fewer colours to blend the dot so the dot starts to show more contrast and to bulge because the lower resolution can't represent fully the fade into the background effect of real life.

@Stingray
"Some argue that playing with icons on (the text labels above the planes) is, in a sense, more realistic, as it helps to overcome the limitations of the limited viewing resolution on a computers screen."

I'd agree. Hyper purists often miss the fact that we lose so many cues from not being physically affected by the actual events we're recreating on the machine. Thats where HUDS come from and macros and so on.

Until we see the holodeck we'll need some kind of compromise to be able to get the full abilities of our digital selves. Anyone that doesn't realize this must enjoy needing to do way more concentrating than anyone did in real life to get the same effect.

Thats exactly why we have the "dots" anyway - to counter the size of the screen. Thats also why some people lose the sight of planes as they get closer.

Remember that you cant zoom in real world. So better have the icons OFF.

what you are calling zoom is actually what the eye would see irl.

the other views are zoomed out, so to speak.

the zoomed out views are only there to give you a wider view, because a monitor is so restrictive.

in other words in this game, theres no such thing as zooming in.

oh i cant see planes below me either.
i'll be looking right at them and as they pass close beneath me they disappear.

i really hope bob is differant because if its the same i'll probaly give it a pass. why waste money on a game thats has totally unrealistic with dots that disappear as they get closer. its ridicolous.

i have a expensive nec monitor that i have run at stupidly low res just to hope to see the dots.

i think that people with cheap monitors can actually spot dots easier in this game.

If Oleg and other developers someday get their toys together, they might figure it all out (but not today)...

Dots = Icons


Dots and icons are ultimately the same thing. Text Icons can give extra "information" like aircraft type, colour coded friend/enemy, numerical distance, pilot name, etc...

Whereas the Dot "icon" should be displayed corresponding to aircraft size, distance, zoom, relative position to the sun, general enviroment lighting, cammo the aircraft is defined to have relative to position, and aircraft above/below cloud layer, etc...

quote:

Originally posted by julian265:

quote:

Originally posted by WTE_Galway:
As for shooting your shadow, it was actually used as a deflection shooting training technique by RAAF P40 pilots in the African campaign.

I believe it was first developed by Squadron Leader Clive Caldwell (RAAF 28 kills) and was then adopted as a standard training technique.

Wow, I bet they lost a few pilots doing that!

Not as many as going into combat in an unfamiliar type with pilots with limited aerial gunnery training and combat experience.

[QUOTE]
Caldwell had flown about 40 operational sorties, but had only one confirmed kill - a Bf 109. He was perplexed by the fact that he had trouble scoring hits on enemy aircraft. Whilst returning to base one day, he noted his squadron's aircraft casting shadows on the desert below. He fired a burst of his guns and noted the fall of shot relative to his shadow. He realised this method allowed for the assessment of required deflection to hit moving targets. Further experimentation lead him to acquire the knowledge to assess deflection needed for a range of speeds. Within a couple of weeks he had attained four further kills and a half share. Caldwell's method of "shadow shooting" became a standard method of gunnery practice in the Middle East.
[\QUOTE]
http://www.wrcs.org.au/articles/62.htm

Caldwell went on to being the RAAF leading Ace.