Rendering Ranges

The title isn't exactly correct, because it is actually a netcode limitation of how WT was made for optimisation of netcode, kind of like the equivalent to how occlusion culling and line-of-sight single-bounce vector trace determination for multiplayer works in quake. They also kind of work as a bonus to limit the capabilities of cheats, but aren't intended to stop them entirely.

I decided to make this page because I made a reply in response to someone stating stuff on discord that reminded me that I've repeated this stuff many times and forgot that I hadn't made a page on this topic yet. I self-taught this stuff when radars were introduced and this information may be inaccurate, as they are all assumptions based on experiences from playing war thunder (mostly Simulator Battles), in a similar fashion to how I learnt strafe jump mathematics in Tremulous before reading through Tremulous' open source code. Generally speaking, it is good enough to teach someone about why they can sometimes or sometimes not spot a dot. I got the "This is a featureTM, not a bug" response when I tried to asked/attempted to report this issue to the tech mods a while back twice, once in like 2018 and 2020 so I guess it's fine to make this page? /shrug/.

A) Absolute hard netcode limit is 36km. This means you won't ever spot a dot nor will your radar ever spot anything beyond this distance while in multiplayer. All allied aircraft are rendered up to this limit unless obscured by terrain. The 36km number isn't fetch from my arse, I got it from playing RB and saw the same trend limitation in simulator battles. Chances are there is a similar value for ground units, which is probably something like 4km for tanks unless observed from a helicopter. It's a bit backwards for ground or naval units, so I won't talk about that since I'm not sure on the exact numbers.

B) Flexible netcode limit. Basically, for anything that isn't friendly.

i) Obscurity: If you fly or drive fast enough around something blocking that line of sight (with some tolerance) with ping that I have, which is supposed to have been compensated for, you can actually see dots or tanks etc. pop out around terrain. I'm pretty sure it uses the same-ish obscuring code that arcade battles does which is probably why arcade battle's name tags going through terrain is such a common thing. I'm not entirely sure how the specifics of this work, but there's generally around a 5 degree tolerance or so plus like a 5 metre bounding box or something.

ii) Visibility: Depends on your crew training and weather conditions. With 0 crew training, an enemy biplane will not be available to the client further than something as close as 3.5km on a hazy day. Sounds really dumb, but I've demonstrated it. On a clear day the biplane will be available at about 7.5km and without paid training and full visibility (5 stars) training, that extends to around 12km. Most single "small" engine jets render at around 18km (like Sabres) with 5 star no-expert crew. In RB, if your crew cannot spot the target but it is available through allied aircraft co-spotting (those teammates must be within this visibility range) the name tags will appear greyed out.

iii) Objectives will assume the 36km limit such as surveillence aircraft. Even if the objective hasn't been assigned or "spotted" by a teammate yet they will still render up to 36km

iv) Search and Tracking RADAR, Rangefinders etc.: Turning any of these on this will set the minimum visibility range on all enemy aircraft to the maximum range of all all of your RADAR-type units currently being used or the 36km hard limit, whichever is lessor. The actual local setting (e.g. having 20km set on the range setting on the T-2) does not affect this, assume maximum available (and so because the T-2 has a radar limit of 370km, that is what we use, however 370 km is greater than the 36km netcode hard limit and therefore the actual render range of dots is actually 36km so you should select the 45km range setting on the T-2 as that gives you the best maximum range scope for your radar). So if your RADAR had options of 5km and 12km, but you have 5km selected, 12km is your minimum range. If you have a tracking radar with capability up to 9.8km with your search radar disabled, 9.8km is your range. If you have 9.8km tracking maximum but 5km selected and your search is at 5km both on simultaneously, assume 9.8km etc.

Using this knowledge you can IFF in aircraft before IFF was introduced, heck the targets doesn't even have to be actually be detected on your radar unit, it just has to be on. Here's a demonstration, I recommend that you use 720p resolution to see the dots and start at the timestamp of 3:39 and watch the radar display flash on and off, and the spotted specks flicker along with them.