How long does it take to Trigger AWS?
 
This is not a fixed value; we vary it on a semi-random basis so that you can’t learn too easily how to manipulate it to do what you want it to. It should in some respects be outside your control how and when you are spotted and reported to your opponents.  You don’t run the enemy air spotter corps.

And what speed is required to trigger it?
 
I believe it is set so that you have to be above stall speed, ie: you are off the ground and flying. You won’t be detected while on the ground.

With the new render engine on the horizon, is there any possibility for a variation in art pallets between brigades or squads or perhaps individuals themselves?
 
That is less about the render engine and more to do with networking and art resources here. We cannot do a lot of decals and individual art because:
 
1)It all requires a state bit to set what is displayed to players, and we have a ton of state bits employed doing all the other stuff the game has to render in different states. We don’t have any spare left right now to be honest.
2)We have to compile all art into the aircrafts textures and finished flight files. Every “new art” you chose to display an aircraft in is more than just a skin or decal, we have to create and compile a new aircraft to show it.

Although historically most pilots had a standardized paint scheme with the fighter groups , but various individuals had their own paint scheme as did squadrons within fighter groups.   Is this kind of variation possible in the near future?
 
We will probably not be able to offer that degree of variation. It would mean devoting the resources to it that 5 different paint schemes would be like 5 different aircraft, even if the aircraft were the same. A game that has 100 aircraft in it can maybe do it, but we have 100 vehicles not 100 aircraft. Every variation of compiled art as part of a vehicle is, as far as this game engine goes, a different vehicle. So 5 paint schemes means 4 more aircraft. Since infantry are also likened to vehicles (they are a 3D rendered piece of equipment) I think we have way more than 100 “vehicles” in this game. I haven’t counted them up for a long time but it’s a bunch I know that. We might at some point create the ability to personalize aircraft further but it will be a decal type thing, at present we are maxed out on decal space because of network limitations more than art itself. Count up all the different states that the game needs to transmit to every player around you; you’ll quickly start to understand that since state bits in the transport packet protocol are limited we can easily run out of available bits.