The Aces High Radar Map
by Hammer

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The map in Aces High is more than just a map of the arena. It also provides radar information. This information is useful for finding a fight quickly. It is also an invaluable part of your situation awareness. Here we will discuss how the map is organized, what the various icons, colors, dots, numbers, etc mean, and what information is available on the map. For information on interpreting this information, see the write-up on Situation Awareness.

When you enter an arena, your clipboard displays a map of the arena in the main window. This map is similar to the one to the right.

This map can be zoomed in and out by left clicking the + and - sign at the top of the clipboard or by using the <Insert> and <Delete> key. When zooming, the map will center on your location, indicated by the white, plane-shaped icon. This plane-shaped icon always indicates your position, regardless of whether you are flying, driving a vehicle, in a tower, or in a PT boat. The nose of the plane points in the direction your plane/vehicle/boat is going if you are in the pilot/driver position, or the direction you are facing if you are in a gunner's position. You can drag the map away from your icon by left clicking and holding anywhere on the map and moving it in whatever direction you wish.

The Map Menu

Right clicking anywhere on the map will bring up the Map Menu. This menu allows you to display or not display various pieces of information on your map. This helps you prevent the map from being too cluttered with information while still providing you with the information you need to conduct your sortie.

The options available by clicking on the map menu are:

  • Field Names - toggles the field names (A14, V24) on and off. This is one I always leave on.


  • Icons - toggles the field icons on and off. The second of three I always leave on.


  • Field Altitudes - toggles the altitude of the fields on and off. The final one I always leave on.


  • Wind - toggles a 4 direction (N, S, E, W) image inside the map window which shows the wind direction, altitude, and speed. Useful to check, but you don't need it on all the time.


  • Legend - toggles a legend within the map window showing all the symbols on the map and what they mean. See below for an example.


  • Radar - toggles range circles showing radar coverage around bases. Enemies in areas outside friendly circles will not show up on dot dar. See below for more information on Radar


  • Zones - on maps where zone control is enabled, toggles arrows from the base controlling the zone to all bases and strategic targets within that zone. If the base controlling the zone is lost, control of the strategic targets (cities and factories) within that zone shift to the capturing side and stop repairing airbases within the zone, causing longer down times.


  • Vehicle Spawns - Toggles arrows showing spawn points for ground vehicles, PT boats, and LVTs. Needed to plan GV missions. Also useful for planning defenses against enemy GVs.


  • My Flight - Only available if you are part of a mission. Puts a line on the map showing your flight's mission route.


  • All Flights - Only available if you are part of a mission. Puts lines on the map showing all flights' mission routes.


  • War Status - Brings up a scrolling box where you can select any base on the map and see the status of the facilities at the field.


  • Net Status - Brings up two graphs showing "Variance in Delay" and "Host Que Time". These are indications of how good your connection to Aces High is.


  • Clipboard Maps - Allows you to display maps of the airfields and factories on your clipboard.

Map Icon Legend

There are many different icons on the Aces High map. Selecting "Legend" on the Map Menu of the clipboard brings up a legend showing what these icons mean. While the icons in the legend are white, the icons on the map itself will be in the friendly color (default = green) or enemy color (default = red), depending on who owns the facility.

The Map Grid System

The Aces High map is divided into sectors which are 25 miles on each side, or 625 square miles each. These sectors are numbered sequentially with numbers in the lower left-hand corner. These numbers are in the standard X,Y coordinate system. The plane icon in the picture at left is in sector 10,9.

Many players assign an additional number, based on the keypad on your computer's keyboard, to give more precise locations within a grid. This system is shown by the lines and numbers in red. These numbers and lines do not show up within the game. In this system, a grid coordinate has 3 components.

The first two components are the X,Y coordinate found in the lower left corner of the grid. As noted above, the plane icon in the picture at left is in sector 10,9. The third component is the single digit based on the keypad. Using this system, the plane icon is at coordinate 10, 9, 9.

You can see that this last digit is less than exact, especially when you are zooming into the grid. Still, it gives a good idea of locations within a grid and can be used to direct people to approximate positions anywhere on the map.

Radar

There are two types of radar in Aces High. They are commonly referred to as "Bar-Dar" and "Dot-Dar".

Bar-Dar refers to the green and red bars which appear at the top of each sector containing friendly and/or enemy. It simulates a country’s total air defense warning system of spotters and reports giving a general location of planes. The bars represent a rough count of the numbers of friendly (green bar) and enemy (red bar) who are flying above 500 feet above ground level (AGL) within that sector. There is no way to get an exact number from the bar-dar... the bigger the bar, the more enemy there are until the bar is all the way across the sector. A full bar across the top could be 10 or 100 enemy in the sector. Bar-dar is available for the entire map unless your headquarters has been damaged or destroyed.

Dot-dar refers to the red and green dots. These are actual plane locations identified by radar at each field. Friendly planes will show up anywhere on the map. Enemy planes will only show up if they are within range (~10 – 12 miles) of operational friendly radar. Checking the “Radar” option on the map menu will turn on the radar range circles indicated by the white and red circles on the map image above. White indicates the radar is operational, red indicates the radar is down.

As mentioned above, enemy lower than 500 ft AGL do not show up on either bar-dar or dot-dar. Ground vehicles and PT boats will never show up on either type of radar.

Aircraft Carrier Course

The last item I'm going to describe is the aircraft carrier course line. In sector 12,9 in the picture above, you can see a red line going through C49. C49 is a Carrier Task Group and the red line indicates the course the carrier is currently programmed to follow.