Two points i want to discuss, point 1 is a question, point 2 is a feature request. Point 1: may it be that the render distance is not accurated? I have set it to 2000 and ever so often, especially with the new patch, i notice that aircraft are not drawn when they are over 1000 meters. But i may be wrong here, anyone made any other observations? Point 2: i would like to request that at least ESF to ESF render distance will be at 6000 meter range regardless of what you have set the 'render distance' to. Cause i am ever so often just thinking it is a network issue or anything else. Enemies pop up way too late, far later than the actual world geometry.
Rendering can be dynamic. That is to say, the crazier the battle the shorter range that things will render. I've been in heavy Tech Plant battles in the AA Phalanx turrets and enemy ESFs will suddenly render ~50m from my position. Just pop up out of the blue. I know they're in the area because I can see friendly ESFs flying as if there's something on their tail, but the enemy ESF has a very delayed render. It's just how the game works because of the MMO nature of the game.
This is actually a very accurate assessment of the rendering distance system. The slider in the game that you might have played with only refers to terrain geometry and not Infantry or Vehicles. Those have upper and lower limits but the functional render distance of other players is calculated by the current population density of a region, as dictated by the server. Terrain doesn't need to constantly talk to the server, but players and player-placed things do. You have little control over it. Regardless, you might want to rethink that estimate. 6km is nearly all the way across any of our continents.
So the bottleneck for increasing actual render distance would be server load/bandwidth, not the client side?
Yeah i noticed that during my first server smash last month. Everyone was at the warpgate and planes where suddenly popping out of 3 meters distance xD Alright, that clears some stuff up for me. So the slider is basically almost useless, as the game makes optimization based on population of the region you are in. Ok, then at least 2000 As far as i understand now it takes the current hex and maybe the neighours of the hex and calculates pop, then it seems to render ground vehicles and maxes with priority. Aircraft are a bit different i think, or at least it is my feeling. @point 2: i would at least suggest a seperate slider where you can set render distance for aircrafts, or something where you can control the priorities, like draw esf first, then vehicles, then infantry. Also: it would make perfect sense for the game to somehow notice that i am flying an ESF high up in the sky (maybe 300, 400 meters), so it then priorizes ESFs and other aircraft vehicles, so it draws all surrounding aircrafts first, so they do not pop up suddenly. Especially as an ESF pilot i often made that observation. I am constantly checking my surroundings to be aware, but to check your complete maybe 240 degrees, or even 170 degrees of surrounding, it takes some deciding time. So it messes up a lot to me when i can not rely on what is in the skies too much and get a draw of my enemy only at around 1000 meters. You basically have to check your surroundings like a total hectic psycho to really be aware and not loose that deciding time. Having enemy aircrafts really draw, let's say at 2000 meters, decreases the rate i have to do that constant checking.
If I am not mistaken, render distance doesn't necessarily make everything render at that distance. So vehicles will render much closer, regardless of the max render distance.
