If you look at tank thermals in game they vary a little on resolutions but are extremely crisp allowing the user(s) to see far out into the distance. All generations in game are too good, generation 1 thermals in tanks in game are essentially gen 3 in real life in quality due to how crisp the image is. Their resolutions adjusted to their more accurate time and or have a post FX filter on to represent how large their pixels were on the screens. If you were to look at older generations of thermals from the beginning of the cold war (M60s for example) have a very low resolution (320x240) to the point that it’s near impossible to identify vehicles from a distance due to how pixelated and restricting it is. This can be very easily seen in the game Gunner Heat PC and how they display their M60s thermals which is more realistic to how their resolution should be. You can also see similar resolution and accuracy in Steel Beasts which is known to be a very accurate tank simulator that governments use to train their own tank crew.
Modern high-end thermals: you can see here that they’re not amazingly crisp but in terms of war thunder this is what generation 1 thermals look like in game and it’s ridiculous.
The M60A3 TTS used the AN/VSG-2 which as you can read on the system information/ you should only be able to ID a target out to 2300m which in game can be done out to much further distances.
Sights like the Agava-2 which is used on the T-80 only have a resolution of 256 elements instead of 100 elements Chronicles thermal imaging. Part of 3
GHPC thermals: here you can see the M60s thermals and how effective it is at seeing a bdrm at long range, it is near impossible to ID other than it being a blob and you can see the resolution of the screen.
Steel Beasts thermals: The M60s thermals in steel beasts, it is hard to perfectly ID the T series tank in the field and you can see the resolution of the screen.
I guess that a major testing in simulator battles could be welcome, then if the community is positive for such change then it can be rolled out in the rest of the game, simulator battles need some care, lol.
i think its a good thing becuase it means that regular vision has an advantage at least for earlier thermals and there is a more noticeable impact in later generation thermals
its near impossible to find any images of old generation thermals in tanks sadly so its the best I could get. I did find the original doc for the M60s thermal but even then thats the A3 TTS not an earlier variant.
IDK about you, but gen 1 IRL thermals looks far more crisp than what War Thunder’s giving me.
ID targets out to 2300? Gen 1 in-game can’t do that. It’ll show a bright dot at best.
Translating tank displays to digital LCDs requires a doubling of resolution for realism anyway.
While i in general agree with the proposal to update the thermals to be more true to real life there are some points you bring up that i have some questions about and am confused about.
I took the M60A3 TTS into a test drive and looked at the target that is ~1200m away while zoomed in and got this:
I would not personally be able to tell if that is an Abrams, a Leopard or a T-serries tank at 1200m and certainly not at 2300m as you say. Or am i misunderstanding your use of the term “ID” ? Are you using it more as “detect” ?
Additionally if you compare that in-game image to what you claim it looks like i do not see that level of clarity. I might be completely misunderstanding what you are trying to say and i hope that you are able to clarify for me.
I would recommend having images of the IRL thermal and the in-game thermal side by side so that it would be easier to understand the differences and what you mean is currently wrong with the in-game counterparts. Currently all images in your post are from other games or IRL but no in-game images from war thunder to show the differences and incorrectness of it. This makes it hard to understand what it is you want changed and in what direction.
Yeah detect would be a better word rather than using ID. When it comes to finding side by side images however I had scoured for ages and couldn’t come up with anything.
I will say though that this suggestion had been prior denied as I was meant to make changes to it so why it now got accepted I don’t know. I was editing it slowly over time to improve upon it but again. I simply cannot find early images of thermals other than those depicted in games that have specifically used museums and ex-crewman for images, videos, prior knowledge on the systems
