IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad

[Prof]

Well...for now they said that they haven't even planned any maps set in spring, summer or autumn...I guess, it will take a while, before they add new scenarios.

They however hinted at other aircraft, they are working on. For example they had a poll on whether the community is interested more in the M.C.202 or the IAR 80.

[Stavroforos]

I really hate the IAR 80, simply because of the way Romanians always talk about it like it was the best fighter ever. I'd love to see it in game because I love every sort of plane, but god it's just such a loaded plane. The Italians had some very good fighters though, I'd love to see those first.

(for the game I don't own, lol)

Also I didn't realize the Yak 3 was considered the best Soviet fighter of the war. Is there any good, long documentary on Soviet aviation during WWII? I mean, Wings of the Luftwaffe was great for covering each of the basic planes of the Luftwaffe, I wish there was one for the RAF, USAAF, VVS, etc.

[Pielstick]

Hit Youtube, there's a series called Wings of the Red Star that covers an awful lot of Soviet aviation. It's a Russian made docu so take it with a pinch of salt. If you work your way through the entire series you'll get to see some awesome archive footage and learn quite a lot about Soviet aviation. The Yak-3 was the ultimate version of the Yak-1 line. In a lower altitude turning fight it was superb.



<- haven't watched this, but it turns up if you do a Youtube search for Yak-3

The Italian fighters are often overlooked. Eric Brown (Google him, very interesting career) rated them very highly. He especially praised the Macchi C.202 as being the perfect mix of Italian airframe and German engine.


As for non-winter maps.... you can bet they do have lots of plans, but they're waiting to see how well BOS does before committing to them.

[leviath]

IAR 80 was a slow aircraft, quite obsolete in 1942, extremely ugly but with a decent armament. MC 202 is quite sexy and a good fighter but its armament is just awful. Now that they just added the sexy He 111, we might expect Il-4 for the Russkies.

I'm still quite pissed about not being able to play the La-5 and the FW 190. I'll never put 40 euros in two aircrafts.

[Ybbon]

Take a look at http://www.chuckhawks.com/best_fighter_planes.htm a fair summation of "best" at various points and theatres because it depended when you compared what aircraft and where. The earlier Spitfires had a carburettor issue fixed by a simple valve (The Tilly Orifice) which meant they could flood and cut out very easily - I imagine the pilots then weren't too impressed by it at all at that point, but when it was fixed, they became better.

Now, to the Il-2 - I may raid the piggy bank and purchase a joystick, any recommendations? Then I can go on steam and take a look at this.

[Stavroforos]

I really wanna buy the Warthog HOTAS, lol. Definitely don't have the money to justify it, but one day...

[leviath]

Expensive sticks recommend to be a skilled player first. It would too hard to get the settings right if you are not experienced with a stick first.
As I said above Thrusmaster T flight Stick X or Hotas, or the T16000m are the best joysticks for beginners. For less than 50 euros, you can't go wrong.

[Pielstick]

Take a look at http://www.chuckhawks.com/best_fighter_planes.htm

Pretty good link, thanks. It misses out some perhaps important details but generally speaking concurs with most of what I've read over the years.

If you want to get an insight into how the various WW2 fighters performed I suggest you check out Wings On My Sleeve by Eric Brown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brown_(pilot)

Former Royal Navy combat and test pilot during WW2. He's flown 487 different aircraft types and in this regard is the most experienced pilot in aviation history. He commanded the Enemy Aircraft Flight at Farnborough during WW2 and it was his job to evaluate captured enemy aircraft. He's probably the only pilot who has flown all the major types from all the combatants of WW2.

HIn 1943 he was asked to evaluate all the USAAF fighters. He came to the conclusion that with the exception of the P-51, all the USAAF fighters were inferior to the Luftwaffe contemporaries. On the subject of the Mustang he praised its performance and roll rate, but criticised it's nasty stall characteristics which he felt was very undesirable for a fighter. He was invited to the Soviet Union and flew their aircraft, his impressions were somewhat mixed. With regards to the Bf109 he thought the Kommandogerat system fitted to German fighters was a huge advantage, but that the lack of a rudder trim in the Bf109 made it extremely tiring to fly, and the action of the leading edge slats popping out caused the aircraf to rock side to side which had an adverse effect on gunnery accuracy. He rated the Zero as the best fighter in 1941. Overall he found the Spitfire XIV and Fw190D as having even honours as the best propeller driven fighters of WW2.

[Hitai de Bodemloze]

ix) Will I have to pay for new stuff to add to the sim?

Yes.

x) Will it be moddable?

No.

I think I'll stick with 1946...

[Stavroforos]

So turns out I can play Rise of Flight with decent enough graphics (I'm absolutely terrible at it though). So, maybe when I have some money I'll try this out, after I've gotten a new joystick.

[Ybbon]

Well I just checked out price on a thrustmaster t-flight hotas-x as suggested and not too horrible and better yet it says I can use it in PS3 and PC - good news as well, I like my PS3. It took me ages originally to take off and land without making a hash of everything, are you at least getting airborne and land OK?

[leviath]

Taking off is easy, landing required some practice. It's clearly very difficult to land in this game but once you are used to, then you do it easily.

[WhooLong]

I'll just say that I regret buying the Alpha for this sim.
I find that playing on Il-2 Cliffs of dover, the predecessor of BoS, is much more fun with the Team Fusion mods, the multiplayer server ATAG has an excellent community.
You guys should check it out, for 9 euros, its worth it. The game is already finished and with the Team Fusion mods its simply breathtaking. Beware though ATAG server have full realism on, but as I said the community is very friendly and always willing to help newcomers.

[leviath]

You can't really blame the game for still being in development. You knew it would be unfinished. I'm sure that BoS is in a better shape now than CloD at release. Also it's worth mentionning it's not the same developpers (just in case some people visiting this thread don't know). BoS devs are serious and close to the community, they release weekly updates with devdiary and some devblog videos.

[Pielstick]

^ This.

CloD with Team Fusion represents a sim that was released in 2011, has had multiple patches and finally a huge community led patching effort.

BOS is still in development.

[Pielstick]

IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad is now in the home straight and is scheduled for release in early November.

But....

There's trouble.

The developers have now implemented a bunch of features that have got the early access customers very upset.

- Upon completion of a mission you are awarded XP points which can be used to unlock new aircraft skins and weapon upgrades.
- These upgrades can only be earned in the SP campaign, meaning MP players must grind in SP to get the upgrades.
- The SP campaign mode is basically a quick mission generator and doesn't feature historical squadrons at correct airfields.
- SP missions are basically "fly here, kill X number of enemy, fly to exit point to complete mission".
- SP missions feature "action point" where the enemy will spawn when you reach it.
- Very limited numbers of aircraft and ground units in the missions.
- AI autopilot removed from SP campaign.
- Only allowed to use 2x time acceleration in SP campaign.

The early access community is in meltdown over all of this. BOS was promoted as a successor to the original IL-2 series and the developers played up BOS' flight sim credentials. Now on the home straight they've revealed it's actually going to take a lot of gameplay elements from War Thunder that are an anathema to the traditional flight simmers who backed this title in early access (myself included). We're not getting a historical sandbox, we're getting a game with XP grinding and unlocks and horribly designed missions. Still no full mission builder.

What's more the Russian developers have basically said a giant F-YOU to the early access crowd, telling them they simply don't want to hear about the complaints and concerns over the sudden change in direction of the title at the last minute. Critical threads and posts are being deleted from the official forum.

As it stands right now BOS won't appeal to the WT crowd because it has too few aeroplanes and too few maps. It won't appeal to the traditional flight sim crowd because it has implemented WT-esque gameplay features that are an anathema to these guys and it can't be used as a historical sandbox for mission building. It won't appeal to the SP crowd because the SP campaign is really just a bunch of thoroughly uninteresting missions spewed out by a random mission generator (which BTW still requires an always on net connection), and it won't appeal to the MP crowd because you need to grind in SP to unlock skins and weapons.

Right now there's a lot of drama queens who are acting like the sky has fallen. There's also the small group of dedicated BOS trolls who have had it in for this title since day one - they're almost orgasmic with delight. There's a few people who can't see what the problem is. I think the majority - among which I count myself - are disappointed with the sudden changes to the fundamental nature of the title and perhaps feel like we've been had by a bait and switch.

I'm thinking BOS is going to fall flat on its face, which is a shame because the core flight and combat aspects are very well done, it's just they've saddled it with some utterly stupid design decisions.

[Stavroforos]

That sounds pretty terrible, pie. What you say is true, this game won't appeal to the War Thunder crowd at all, but if it tries to implement features from there then it will drive away some simmers. It's tough nowadays though, for someone to find a successful formula for a flight sim.

[Pielstick]

It looks like they thought they could try and catch some of the War Thunder crowd but in doing so they've got a title that sits very awkwardly in between War Thunder and the original IL-2 series... and is probably going to fail to satisfy fans of either.

I thought they might skimp on the SP content, but I didn't think they'd drop the ball as badly as this.

[Pielstick]

The blowback continues.

It looks like the developers weren't too happy with the reviews they were getting on Metacritic so this was posted in the official forum:



The thread has now been removed and a more mild one has replaced it. Some people started linking the above image in their reviews on Metacritic, and somebody has reported those reviews as abuse and had them removed.

The damage is done. The developers are dragging the IL-2 brand through the mud and to be perfectly honest, after feeling so positive about this sim a few months ago in the early access, I just feel like uninstalling it now.

[Ybbon]

If this was a UK or US company, they would be facing some serious questions about false advertising and lawyers sharpening their writs. What a poor way to treat your players and people who have given you their money for a beta. Very shabby and poor behaviour - imagine R2 crowd if CA pulled that stunt, my mace would be worn to a nub