For what it's worth, flying the red side online against good blue pilots, I often get the opposite impression to gaunt1.

In 1941, nothing the Soviets have can match the 109-F4, except maybe the MiG 3ud and only way, way up high. The F4 is noticeably faster and better climbing than all Soviet planes, and its slightly inferior turn rate is more than compensated by its great low-speed stability, allowing its pilots to pull harder without fear of stalling.

In 1942, nothing the Soviets have can match the 109-G2, maybe only the La5F, and only way, way down low. Once again, the German machine outruns and out-climbs everything, and its turn rate is more than good enough to compete.

In 1943 things are fairly even if you avoid fighting the La 5FN below 2-3000m, by 1944 the Soviets have some nice planes that can out-turn all and catch most German fighters. I'd say overall things are balanced and fine; from a gamer's point of view it's good to sometimes have the better machine, and sometimes be the underdog.

+1

I tend to agree with this.

I have been working in this:

http://www.degnans.com/markd/1942_Fw...Speed_Yak9.gif

http://www.degnans.com/markd/1942_Fw...Yak9_Climb.gif

Climb rate now looks far better than the current one we have in IL2 compare! However, top speed at SL is still too much, the MBI book says its only 535 km/h. 551 is for La-5F. The data is from actual soviet test results. I include the page from the book.

First of all as far as I understand Il2 is not so much about gameplay balance, it aspires to be sufficiently accurate.

P39 is more than adequate vs 109s in 41-42. P39D is faster than 109G2 below 4500m and turns better. It is also competitive vs FW190A4FR.
I know it is not soviet made, but it was available to VVS during that period in significant numbers and most servers add it to the planeset. La5F is faster below 2k and a better turner as well.

In 1943 La5FN totally dominates both Bf106G2-G6 (G2 is way better than G6) and FW190A5-A6 in every respect below 3k and is only marginally weaker above in top speed department.

In 1944 La7 is better in all respects than any 109 or 190 below 2-3k. above that altitude only 109K4 is faster, but at high speeds its turning performance is terrible so you can't really use your E advantage effectively vs competent La7s pilots below.
If any 1944 109 or 190 is attacked by a co-E or higher E La7 - @3-4k and below - there is nothing he can do - can't outrun, can't out-turn can't out-climb. Best bet is a head-on (if possible). Above that altitude - only k4 has a chance (outrun/outclimb). La7 is way better than A9 in every respect (except 4 roll rate and weapons) across all altitudes.

In 1945 the situation is the same, except for D9 which is somewhat faster between 2500 and 7k, but above 8k La7 is taking the lead again, which is quite funny, given the fact D9 was a med-high altitude interceptor,was more or less competitive even vs P51s and P47s at 7-9k and La7's performance suffered above 6k. The other important thing to consider is that D9 now overheats faster than La7 (and takes a long time to cool down) - so you won't be able to maintain that high speed for long. Not sure about acceleration - I made few tests at sea level and La7 accelerates to 600km/h pretty quickly and in D9Late I was able to reach only 570 and got an overheat pretty quickly.

This does not include jets of course, because they are usually not available online. But even if they were - me262's mk108s are not very good vs fighters at the me262 speeds. They are however virtually invulnerable once they gain speed and altitude.

To sum up - in 1941-42 P39 is a good match vs 109s and 190s, 1943+ - La5/La7 totally dominate 109/190s.
So I can't say it is fair or even accurate. La7 supposed to be only marginally faster than A8/A9 at low altitude and slower than D9+MW50 (which is BTW late 1944, not 1945).

Only the P-39D2 is a good match, the other P-39s are inferior. They're also much harder to fly and shoot with their impossible stall recovery and softball lob cannon.

The La 5FN dominates only below 2000m. The La 7 is a tough plane to fly against, but it still gets out-climbed by many 109s, especially above 2000m, and is slower than most German fighters at high altitudes.

Absolutely you can get away from an La7 in a 109 or 190 at 3-4K metres; smooth split S leveling out at 850km/h at 1000m and you're heading home with a 100km/h+ advantage, since the La7 falls apart at about 750km/h.

You say you can't use the 109K4's e-advantage against a competent La7 pilot, well, you're not supposed to be able to. Use that speed and climb rate to get away and maybe come back again when he's less aware.

Overall, German planes climb to altitude quicker and are better at altitude than Soviet ones throughout the war. If they stay disciplined then they're very hard to touch in the early war, and still competitive in late war. If you add jets or Ta's, and many servers do, then the Germans do extremely well in 1944-45 too.

I fly as Raven online. I think both Z1024 and WokeUpDead should recognize me as once a frequent visitor in RCAF_FB_Server. (Yeah, I know it's an open-pit arcade server. But that was the only well-populated server I could find on HY (I play stock game), though I always fly with cockpit closed there).

In a air-quake server (actually most popular servers you can find on Xfire now are of this type), in which the main bases of both sides are within the same grid and icons & external views are turned on and cockipt turned off, I would say Soviet fighters does enjoy an advantage, no matter what planeset the mission uses.

But I could still live with it before 4.11 was out. Because most red uber-plane fliers are not comparable with me in skills. I was still able to constantly shoot down M71-equipped I185s and Yak-3P (most of which with cockpit open) in my beloved Bf-109K4C3. But in 4.11, the situation aggravated. MW50-enabled engines overheated way too quickly. As for late-war 109s and 190s, engine would be damaged within 4 minutes of continuous 110% throttle use with MW50 enabled. I had to get out of the battlefield and cool my engine every 3 assault passes because without MW50, German planes were only sitting ducks. But the time needed for this to happen before 4.11 was about 10 minutes, which coincided with the data provided by the community. In 4.11.1 the time is only prolonged by 1 minute, which is still 5 minutes short.

I love every enhancement TD did to the game in 4.11, especially the 6DOF feature, except the engine overheat model. It had negated all the efforts Oleg made to perfect the game, which he cherished as his son. I believe Oleg had done a lot of researching when trying to model the engine system of every plane to correctly represents its real-life counterpart. It should not be easily negated without giving cogent proofs.

I'm not saying what you guys have done is wrong. And I really appreciate your efforts to elevate this longstanding title to a whole new level. But IL2 does not only belongs to 1C and/or TD. It belongs to the entire community. We have rights, as well as obligations, to keep the game alive.

And I have to say, patches 4.11 and 4.111 are somewhat dragging the already sinking ship towards a vortex. German planes are indeed more negatively affected than allied ones by those patches. The game's life will come to an end when all German pilots are quitting this game, which is already happening from my point of view. At that time, any enhancement you make for the game will be meaningless.

I hope you can roll back the FM of Fw-190s and the overheat model to those in 4.101 and provide evidences to support every change you made to the game since 4.10, especially FM wise.

I think engine overheat & damage is more or less OK for german planes (to be honest, I only fly bombers and the bf-110 from the german side). The problem is that it isnt simulated on all aircrafts, especially on soviet ones. For example, the VK-107 engine was quite prone to overheat in RL, and when it overheated, engine seizure came very quickly due to the extremely poor lubrication. (should be simulated) ASh-82 engines didnt overheat too much in RL as far as I know, but they should do it a tiny bit more often ingame. The other problem is that the FM of some planes (La-5 & 7 series for example) is modeled after the prototypes. With that performance, they dont have to run their engines @ 110% much. (against all 190As, and some 109s, I dont have to use "Forsazh" at all in my La-5FN, except if my opponent has energy advantage)

Hey Jermin, I do recognize you from RCAF, you're pretty good in that 109K. But the first part of your argument, if I could paraphrase it, is basically "I don't like this patch because it does not allow me to dominate like I used to in the one plane I like to fly." Is it realistic, or historically accurate (which is what I'm told this game tries to be) for you to be able to do that in the first place? Were single 109K pilots able to stay in a long engagement with single Yak-3s and win more often than not? Or did they do what Hartmann did: strike quickly, preferably not alone, once maybe twice, and then get out of there?

Back during patch 4.09 days, one of my favourite planes to fly was the P-11c. I'd love to get into dogfights with anything and watch 20mm and 30mm cannon shells bounce right of the P-11's oversimplified damage model. They fixed that in 4.10, and I was severely disappointed to find out that I was no longer able to dangle in front of a 190's nose without consequences. But as tough as Polish metal is (the P-11 was all-metal!), that change was probably accurate, and it didn't drive Polish pilots away from this sim. If you can't do what you used to be able to do in your favourite plane anymore, then get another favourite plane or adjust tactics.

I know RCAF is the only 4.11 server with decent numbers late at night Pacific time (Skies of Valor also does well then, but it's still 4.10), but that is the absolute toughest and most unfair server to judge plane balance on, because it has an "All vs All" plane-set. So you get I-I85s vs Ta's. Or Zeros vs 190s. Or Yaks vs Yaks. And then people complain that their blue 1945 hot-rods (that historically had problems because of materials shortages and quality of slave labour) don't perform as well against red 1942 hot-rods that had engine problems and only flew as prototypes till 1943.

I'm all for making changes based on good evidence; the La-7 changes being proposed in the other thread look really good for example. But it feels like some in this thread are saying "in this particular year, my plane A does not do as well against plane B as it did in the last patch, please hobble plane B." You may have to accept that the changes made in 4.11 are accurate, and that your plane A really should not have been as good against plane B as it was in 4.10.

While I'm not sure about the flight model in reference to speed, climb or turn since I don't have enough data (especially for the last two, finding speed numbers is easier) and also are not entirely sure what all the numbers are in game, I am very certain the fast overheating for the German planes is not historical.

I actually remember seeing links to test/technical data for the engines heat produced and the radiator effectiveness on this very forum (But I sadly can't find it right now). If I recall correct the data there showed that the full open radiator would actually absorb more heat than the engine produced in a climb.

There was also a very big discussion not so long ago about the MW50 boost, that should have shown to everybody reading it, that full power flight with MW50 boost enabled on WEP power setting was officially allowed for 10min at a time and could be sustained for a total of 27min (after which time the MW50 fuel would run out) with 7min durations in between at lower power settings. The problem after 10min also seems to be not so much the heat but rather the stress on the engine produced by the high power setting. Military power was allowed for 30min at a time.
A lot of the data can be found somewhere on this page: http://kurfurst.org/

I really see IL-2 as a simulator and would like to have FMs as accurate as possible, but with the current state of some planes FM I would settle for a faster "closer to reality than it was" fix rather than wait around for a very long time for a "very very close to the actual plane" fix.