So is there any real advantage for paying 200 certs for thermal over the 50 cert infrared? As far as I can tell infrared would just be the more obvious choice.
I've used infrared which is the one that highlights borders, it works great night or day. The nomenclature makes no sense by the way. Infrared radiation is heat, so thermal optics should be the same thing as infrared optics.
I've heard thermal is just IR but with less range. I haven't bothered to sink in 200 certs for NV, but IR works great for me
The only advantage, currently, to Thermographic is that Thermo gives you greater terrain detail, model detail (you can tell a light from a heavy from a medic in it) and mines and infiltrators show up. Infiltrators only show up at like 25 meters or so, and show up as a silhouette of the infiltrator, where as IR they show up with the same warble distortion you see with normal vision. Other than that it is less range than IR. On my magrider it feels like 150 meters. I'll have to do a test with waypoints to see for certain. Someone declared that on aircraft it is further, but I haven't felt like sinking more certs to try it. Basically Thermo isn't worth it. If I could see through walls to at least see if infantry were in a base (or one level of wall would suffice) then I could justify the shorter range AND huge cost, but as it is the only benefit is seeing infiltrators and mines more easily, and supposedly you can see mines with IR.
I haven't had much luck spotting mines with IR. I don't know if the people who say it's "easy" to spot them with it have somehow turned off all the rocks and such, but they still only appear when they're very close to the vehicle, so I think you'd have trouble seeing them in time unless going very slowly. I have the Thermal on a Sunderer turret. It has a little less range than the IRNV, but it's much easier to pick out targets with it and it doesn't suffer from the whiteout issues that the IRNV occasionally (though rarely) gets on some terrain. It's much easier on the eyes, too. My gunners like it. Probably consider trying it out if your vehicle is very heavily upgraded already and you wouldn't mourn the loss of 200 certs if you decide you don't like it. I wouldn't bother otherwise.
Never claimed all infrared is heat radiation. But since heat is infrared, it's confusing that you have both thermal and infrared optics. Thermal optics IS infrared optics.
Actually, you did say "Infrared radiation is heat", which it is not. Anyway, ingame: Infrared Optics is full spectrum, bright, long range, but low contrast. Thermal Optics is selective spectrum, dim, short range, but high contrast. Thermal optics is only useful on aircrafts because they have, for some reason, much longer range optical imaging range which counters the shorter range of termal. Thermal is just myopic on everything else.
"Infrared radiation is heat" != "All infrared radiation is heat" I agree on the functional distinction, but the nomenclature is still confusing.
Oh gawd I wish I had seen this clip before I wasted 400 certs to get thermal for both Bulldog mortars on my Galaxy. I had heard something about that Thermals had worse sight range than IR, but I had no clue it was as bad as it seems in this video. The Scythe that is hovering at a reasonable distance in the background is completely invisible on Thermal but fully lit up with IR.
Thermal vision needs to have the ability to see thru walls and its range needs to be comparable to infrared to be worth the high cert cost.
Seeing through walls actually sounds really useful, but not really overpowered considering the utility of zoom and ir.
Seeing through walls... No, no and no. Crysis 2 had that (nanovision), it's essentially noob mode. The game would've been much better without an official wallhack.
