It allows you to zoom out farther than normal to get a somewhat better view of the battle field. I would have liked to zoomed out farther, but the games render in fog and sky. These combine to make seeing things harder when zoomed out any farther than I have them. As you may notice you can start to see the fog a little from this distance (it's a faint white haze). As of now, I do not know how, if it is even possible, to turn these off and allow for more zooming. The only way I know how to get it kind of turned off is in the Mission Editor that comes with the RDN ToolSet. However this only works while in the ME, and even if you do save it, it does not carry over to the game.