Without Labels ?

[walsh2509]

I just started a career as a oung japanese pilot in New Guinea, sitting in cockpit waiting my turn to take off (I was last) and sirens screaming as at least 6 or more enemy fighters were above the base.

By the time I had got up and was looking at the mixed dogfights away ahead of me all the planes looked like dots (big dots but still dots) if the labels were off you could end up going after one of your own and not know until you were very very close to the plane..

It might be my GFcard GF4 TI4200 128mb , but even so the distance that you can tell if its an enemy plane or one of your own I think is to far!

I know they had some complaints about this distacne thing in Lock On and they did in the main patch make them bigger.

But I guess the ships in PF are kept small so that they can get 120 odd on screen as claimed in online play. If they were bigger i guess it would slow the game down even on offline play.

[georgeo76]

I don't know, I've never had any problem telling friend from foe, but there are some things you can do to spot a bandit w/o visual ID

who is the AAA shooting @? they're always right

look @ the tracers

look @ the way an AC is maneuvering. If you see an AC flying @ high speed and high alt toward your base, he's prob a bandit (most friendlies will be coming in low and slow to land)

[Dr...Watson]

It is very difficult to tell who is who without labels on. The aircraft size and dots seem pretty realistic, Lock On was terrible until they fixed it in the patch whicj brought it to a similar level to IL2.

In real life, after reading some WWII books by pilots who fought in various theaters, I soon realised that nearly all dogfights start by trying to determine who is who, you then get lost from your squadron within seconds of a furball starting, if your lucky you recognise an aircraft and maybe bring it down, then you are all alone and fly home and land at any base you could find because of low fuel, poor maps, bad weather etc.

I also never realised how much "blue on blue" fighting there was, alot of aircraft look similar until up close so AAA brought down friendlies, bomber crews shot at FW190 and Typhoons at the same time.

Without labels is like the real world, with labels makes it less frustrating really.

[juan_mol]

To ID targets I find the zoomed in view (del key) really useful. After a fair amount of friendly fire because I couldn't tell friend from foe I started using this procedure:
1) Pick a plane that you think is an enemy.
2) Close distance to it.
3) Use the zoomed in key to identify.
4) Engage or break away.

If you engage it's wise to return to normal view to have a wider field of vision.
Using the zoom you can identify planes from further out. It also pays off to know the planes (enemy and friendly) so you can recognize shapes and colors.