Here's the increase render distance patch in action. I left the default increase value to 40000.0m. Made a single mission where I had a fighter ~70000.0m to the west of my sub. As soon as the game loaded I paused it, drew a distance line, went to external cam and followed the line to the end to find:
Working just like it should
Disabled the patch and tried it again. No dice. Plane didn't render till it was ~35000.0m from my sub.
This patch will make campaigns a little more interesting now, especially if the increase render distance is > 80000.0m