IL-2’s Lead Producer has posted a new video from version 4.10 which will introduce some new spotting tweaks to the IL-2: Great Battles Series. This comes rapidly on the heels of recent discussions and polls on the subject matter and now, with this video, we’re seeing the first phases of this update. Here’s what we know.

New tweaks to come in phases

A post on the IL-2 forums by Jason Williams has helped to illuminate some of the plans that the 1CGS team are working on with regard to spotting. Although the following video is somewhat compromised by YouTube’s compression algorithm, I think it still illuminates the point and offers up superior spotting. Look around the 3-minute mark and I think you’ll see that it’s easier to pick out aircraft flying nearby.

Here’s what Jason had to say about the video:

So, you can see that video is not quite the best way to demonstrate these kinds of issues as the quality gets reduced somewhat. In game – it’s a great looking scene and this video does not do it justice. The team has really improved this nagging issue. Planes are more easily spotted and tracked, but we maintain a realistic picture and at certain angles and certain lighting they can still be hard to spot against the terrain as it was in real life, but not overly difficult as before. I can easily use any FOV and with the new FOV quick-keys spotting, IDing and dogfighting even without a TrackIR or VR is a snap. 

Jason Williams

Excellent news and I think welcome from most parts of the community. There will undoubtedly be a few who claim its a little too easy to spot targets now but I think this is the right direction for the sim and one that is both still realistic but also, and essentially, respectful that the sim is not being seen through our own eyes but through a computer screen (VR or otherwise).

The changes here remind me a bit of IL-2: Cliffs of Dover and the Desert Wings expansion with more contrasting aircraft against the background.

Jason was also clear to say later in the thread that this is just one tweak that they have made and that other tweaks are coming to the sim as well.

…we haven’t even tweaked any haze and we plan to make a new LOD level that gives us even more flexibility in the future for spotting, but that takes 1.5 months to build and we can’t do it right now.

Jason Williams

Again, this is good news. It’s been an issue that’s grown in the minds of the community for a while now and it’s great to see 1CGS take some quick action on it now that they have had time to investigate their options. I think this will be a good change for the series and will hopefully alleviate some of the issues out there.