Thinking about the TAC screen...

[DukeIronHand 8]

The one "cheat" I seem to use consistently is the TAC screen but I keep the range low in a attempt to put some "realism" into its use.

 

With that being said at what range (in good weather in real life) would one expect to see another airborne aircraft? Tried to give it some thought and realized I didn't have a clue.

 

I would guess about 4 NM but thought that I would get some opinions from the old hands here.

Edited May 4, 2011 by DukeIronHand

[Olham 164]

You could see another craft in good weather at a range of ca. 2 miles, as I experienced on a sunny day, co-piloting a sail plane at 4.000 meters.

But we could only guess the distance, of course.

 

Here is the answer of a professional airliner pilot, that may help you:

 

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=267988

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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In my experiences flying small aircraft I have been surprised more than once by another plane that just suddenly seemed to appear from nowhere within half a mile of me, (or less). I have also spotted other planes as far away as 6 to 8 miles on a nice clear day. But I would say the average likely distance for seeing a small plane in clear weather is probably around 2 miles and under. I am always amazed at just how hard they are to spot when I'm up in the air with them, (at least for me anyway).

 

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[Olham 164]

Duke, what do you need the TAC more for - spotting enemy aircraft, or to follow the flight path?

 

Cause, I fly mostly without any TAC and Labels, and always found two things surprising:

- the enemy doesn't seem to spot me any better than I see them; I even see them passing us sometimes, with no reaction

- when I spot them higher, and I realise they attack: well, then that's how it was for the RL pilots; then it's "run, rabbit, run"

or "stand up and fight"

 

- as for the route: I find it enough to either switch on the ingame map to check and make corrections;

- or I fly after real paper maps, printed out. They are in a thick clear plastic sleeve, which I draw my course onto with a red marker

 

The aids do rather spoil the thrill of any RL feeling / immersion. You only notice that, after you made two or three flights without them.

It feels totally different; the fun of fights will get replaced by the sheer fun of being up there, plus the thrill of expecting to find some

enemy flights, before they find me.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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I agree with you Olham, 100%. I love flying without any of the in-sim aids, and navigating by "paper" map is a blast. But, as we've discussed many times in the past, that is one of the great features of OFF; you can fly it however you like.

 

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[Slartibartfast 153]

At present I with the TAC it was great as I didn't have TrackIR to allow me to look about...

[Burning Beard 14]

On the subject of the visibility of another aircraft.... Chuck Yeager, who had phenomenal eyesight, said he could see another plane at 50 miles. I asked my father about this, who also had phenomenal eyesight and was a B29 pilot in WWII, and he said that was about right. Now you have to remember this was also picking up on things like reflection off of glass surfaces, flying at high altitude and the lack of additional aids like onboard radar and air traffic control. These guys were always looking because their lives depended on it, and in the case of my father there was more than one set of eyes.

 

In the case of reflection, when surveying we would use distance measuring equipment out to around 7 miles, in heavily wooded country. We would flash the mirror on a compass to guide the gunner (quite often me) to the location of the target. So I know that reflected light off of a very small object can get you attention at a long distance under less than ideal conditions.

 

 

Beard

[Lewie 7]

I think it was mentioned in the other 'labels' thread that some of us are running lower resolutions, so some of us have to rely a bit more on visual aids.

 

I've been flying with the labels off and the tac circle on only when I notice flak bursts nearby. My strategy here lately is to completely ignore the waypoints as the game wants me to play them by pressing "X" for next waypoint, and instead just climbing as much as possible while in the vicinity of the home airbase, and then heading off on the mission at about the cloud base's height or a little higher. It's easier to see flak bursts against the white of the clouds, as are aircraft.

[von Baur 54]

Standard survival equipment includes a signalling mirror not much bigger than a 3x5 card. The instructors said it could be seen for hundreds of miles. Given the light it's reflecting has already travelled 93,000,000 miles, what's a couple hundred more?

 

Resolution is a major factor in simulator visibility, as is screen size. On my 19" 1280X1024 monitor it's difficult to see enemy aircraft for some time in a QC mission. But the same mission on my 32" 1080p TV and I can see them within a few seconds.

[Flyby PC 23]

They reckon the glow from a cigarette tip is enough to give away your position from 5 miles away at night. It really depends how you define 'spotting'.

 

Bare in mind the white TAC tabs indicate an aircraft too far away to identify, so in theory you're not getting too much advantage, save that you are 100% sure to see them. Then again, I have every confidence that in real life many aircraft would be seen, but not be spotted immediately, - a glint of sunshine or fleck of movement will have prompted the gunner or pilot to scan a particular sector of the sky with greater attention just because he thought he saw something. Technically, has he actually seen the aircraft or not? The big disadvantage with the TAC is that it doesn't have an "I think I saw something" zone - the half way house between seeing something and not seeing it. The TAC only has confirmed sightings. So yes, that's perhaps an advantage to you. But, set against that advantage, you have the disadvantage that other gunners or aircrew will not alert you to aircraft they have spotted. In flight you might have fifty pairs of eyes scanning for bandits, but throughout the whole sim squadron yours are the only eyes that matter. In those circumstances he tac restores the balance a bit.

 

So I don't know. I can understand people wanting to jiggle about with the TAC, but I quite like it the way it is. If I could change anything about the TAC, I'd engineer a line of sight factor, like it has for clouds. That way I could not see other aircraft through the fabric of my plane or behind me - unless I turn. That would up the realism factor immensely, especially if ai aircraft played by the same rules. That way you could bounce aircraft and have them react to the attack instantaneously, and also snipe at a squadron picking off stragglers without the whole squadron reacting. Have darkness another limiting factor on your vision, and you've got a whole new experience flying, - especially as a predatory night fighter. That still wouldn't be perfect, because it you had a tail gunner, he could see behind you, so why disable that facility?

 

TAC isn't going to suit everybody all of the time, but overall, the developer has my compliments, because for what it was intended to do, (and we should judge it without TrackIR to be fair), I think it's a pretty good effort. It's been designed by committee thats all.

 

Thinking out loud though, - I wonder if would be possible to have workshop option to select the TAC you want to use. That way you could engineer alternative TACs more appropriate to the type of aircraft you were flying aircraft, - a fighters TAC with restricted forward vision, a bomber with gunners giving 360 cover etc. Like I say, just thinking out load.

 

I'd disable the real cheat the TAC offers too. If you toggle onto a white tag and assign wingmen to attack it, they will do so if it's an enemy, but they'll refuse if it's a friendly target. That way you know then whether your white tag is actually blue or red, long before it changes.

 

There are other factors too. Haze, smog, where the sun is, is the target backlit or are you. It's all going to vary the distance you can see things. There are also false sightings, such as birds which might be mistaken for aircraft. It's a very complex thing to model, but unfortunately its perhaps the most central issue to a combat sim.

 

I can fully respect the greater challenge of flying without aids, but I'm less convinced you're acually making your flight more real. Of course you wouldn't have these utilities in the aircraft, but your real life quality of vision, perspective, speed, weather and windspeed, sense of gravity, and spatial awareness would all be massively better. The aids only compensate you for abilities you would have in real life but which cannot be accurately simulated. You could even (perhaps) make the argument that better realism would compell you to use the aids so you do not disadvantage your pilot unfairly.

 

 

[Flyby PC 23]

Still thinking out loud, - we already do have alternative TACs. You remember in CFS3 you can pick a fighter or bomber pilot and assign him skills? Well I'm sure those choices had a bearing on your TAC; that is the distance when white tags went red etc. It could be varied according to your pilot's abilities.

 

Wow. I'm so out of touch with CFS3 these days.

[DukeIronHand 8]

Still thinking out loud, - we already do have alternative TACs. You remember in CFS3 you can pick a fighter or bomber pilot and assign him skills? Well I'm sure those choices had a bearing on your TAC; that is the distance when white tags went red etc. It could be varied according to your pilot's abilities.

 

Wow. I'm so out of touch with CFS3 these days.

 

Yes, I have always wanted to use that point system for pilot abilities and skill in OFF. Be a nice touch I think.

 

Anyway for those that offered an opinion it seems like two miles is the thought for TAC range.

 

And yes I do use the TAC screen (and only the TAC screen for you purists) for two reasons:

 

1) For navigation purposes a.k.a. "the blue line". The in-game map is worthless. Which paper map corresponds to the in-game landmarks?

 

2) I have a great, big, high resolution monitor and TIR 5 and still find it "unrealistically" difficult to spot them. Even knowing where to look (from the TAC screen) it is still very hard to see them.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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This subject always sparks some lively discussion. Gotta love it. I will say again that, for me, and given the monitor I have, and the fact that I use TrackIR, I find the whole adventure much more "realistic" when I fly without any of the in-sim aids. I have learned to scan the skies quite well and can usually pick out the tell-tale speck of an aircraft from a good way out, (several in-sim miles at least). I also use the AA bursts as a sort of TAC screen as well, much as our RL counterparts did back in the day. With clouds set at '5' the AI cannot see through them any better than I can. And, I bounce AI flights on a fairly regular basis, using the tricks of altitude and clouds to my advantage. I believe the devs have already modelled the living bejeebers out of the old CFS3 engine in their attempts to make this sim more "like it was". So, if you don't want to be able to "see" through the clouds or your own plane parts, simply shut off the aids and fly with TrackIR. If you cannot afford that little goodie, than use the aids as you see fit to help correct for the shortcomings you personally perceive. Again, that is the great thing about this sim; total adjustability to suit your own tastes.

 

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[RAF_Louvert 101]

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1) For navigation purposes a.k.a. "the blue line". The in-game map is worthless. Which paper map corresponds to the in-game landmarks?

 

Duke, the large Nat Geo map I made available in the OFF downloads is a good choice, as are the ones from Rabu, Chris, Waldemar Kurtz, and Olham. Your best luck is to navigate by rail lines, rivers, and lakes, (roads will work as well, but they can be a bit trickier to follow). And, as you fly in a specific AO, it helps a lot to make notes on your map of things such as large woods, odd intersections, lake shapes, etc. After only a few flights you will have a pretty good sense of the area you fly over, and will start to recognize a lot without looking at the map at all.

 

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[DukeIronHand 8]

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Duke, the large Nat Geo map I made available in the OFF downloads is a good choice, as are the ones from Rabu, Chris, Waldemar Kurtz, and Olham. Your best luck is to navigate by rail lines, rivers, and lakes, (roads will work as well, but they can be a bit trickier to follow). And, as you fly in a specific AO, it helps a lot to make notes on your map of things such as large woods, odd intersections, lake shapes, etc. After only a few flights you will have a pretty good sense of the area you fly over, and will start to recognize a lot without looking at the map at all.

 

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Yes, I have the Nat Geo map and it is indeed awesome. I often check it out while reading WW1 accounts. Probably a hang-over from my military days but I have always had a "map fetish" and like a good map. Luckily that fetish is not against the law!

 

I have also d/l'ed and looked at the other maps. Perhaps it is time to get them again and take another look.

 

Has anyone ever posted a shot of an actual map used by aviators while flying in WW1? Was there a "standard issue" map for an area of the front where a pilot was expected to fly issued by HQ or was it left to the imagination of the various squadrons or brigades to piece something together?

[RAF_Louvert 101]

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Duke, there were official maps issued by all sides, and they changed fairly often as the fronts changed. The pilots tended to carry a map of large scale but small geographical area, (barely going beyond their mission range). But interestingly, there are numerous accounts from Great War pilots stating that they simply bought an off-the-rack tour map of a region and used that to get familiar with their AO's. If you Google 'WWI pilot maps' you will likely find numerous examples of what was being used.

 

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[Lewie 7]

Yes, I have the Nat Geo map and it is indeed awesome. I often check it out while reading WW1 accounts. Probably a hang-over from my military days but I have always had a "map fetish" and like a good map. Luckily that fetish is not against the law!

 

I have also d/l'ed and looked at the other maps. Perhaps it is time to get them again and take another look.

 

Has anyone ever posted a shot of an actual map used by aviators while flying in WW1? Was there a "standard issue" map for an area of the front where a pilot was expected to fly issued by HQ or was it left to the imagination of the various squadrons or brigades to piece something together?

 

I think a future request would be to allow 'importing' of a better resolution map from a folder within OFF. And this is where it would be tricky, allow the user to move and zoom it much like a Google Earth map.

[Shiloh 12]

I am a new player so I'm still settling in to all this, but the one aid I find most necessary is the TAC. On my last few missions I've been trying to turn off labels, and F5 (compass/speed/altitude) whenever possible. The one thing about the TAC that appeals to me more than the enemy on radar blips is that blue line that keeps me on course. I find myself circling around as it is at times because I didn't hit the waypoint just right. If one wants the blue line for direction without the benefit of the seeing the enemy blips, I find that hitting "T" and selecting "ships" for instance will maintain the blue line, but show you nothing else that will be valuable and you're relying on just your eyesight at that point.

 

Someone brought up a good point about screen resolution and at 1650x1080 (my settings on my 22") I'm afraid those buggers will be a bit tough to see even under the best of circumstances. I do agree that perhaps adjusting the distance can be a good compromise. Is that available in workshop settings?

[TaillyHo 2]

No, you can adjust that on the fly, Shiloh. Ctrl+Shift+T will toggle you through the distances (8m, 4m, 2m, 1m), just watch the little number at the bottom of the TAC.

[Shiloh 12]

Good to know...thank you Taillyho!

Edited May 6, 2011 by Shiloh

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Based on the high level of interest about flying by map without the assistance of the TAC, I have a feeling the devs are paying particular attention to the landscape and terrain in P5, including better trees, towns, roads, and even rivers, so it should be even easier to navigate by maps and ground reckoning than it is currently. If so, I think it will bring a whole new level of fun to the game for most of us "diehards," without making it too difficult for the more casual player.

[Lewie 7]

My hopes are that it plays well with my new machine.