Request to Skinners
 

Servers now have disabled skins... this means that you see blank aircraft flying around a lot more now :(.

Many of you make blank skins but could you totally awesome guys include blank skins that still have unique markings?

Thanks guys :D

You mean like repaint the stock skins?
Too easy.
Now why on earth would they turn off skins? Idiocy.

No no no...

I mean things like an aircraft unique symbol, for example on Farrels skins his blanks not only remove the number but also squad and unique aircraft symbols so the only way to keep them would be to use the marked skins and have in game markings off which means everyone would see a blank default skin.

Switched off markings only work for the your own view of your own plane, others still see the markings, even if you switched them off on your own plane settings. So if you use skin provided markings and switch off markings in your plane settings, others see the skin-markings and the game markings, which really looks bad, but only from anther plane. So that planes are blank if you switch off markings in the plane settings is new.

Yeah last night there were loads of 109s flying around without markings all were using custom skins and markings off when I asked the pilots.

So it will be like the old il2 now, with just default skins seen online? Thats a real shame.
RoF has a great way of dealing with skins, all skins are officially aproved, and then downloaded as official skin packs.

This is just bloody madness,why would they do this?what advantage has someone got flying around with a custom skin?,how ridicoulous:rolleyes:

Because we frakin want to, and because most of our skins look better than the stock ones.
I mean really how much time did they put into the 109 stock skins, 5 minutes?

+1000 I have requested this a few times, its a great system.

Well I see the yellow nose 109 as a huge give away why should I be forced to fly with it :evil: so it looks like I will be flying with none yellow nose default skins for a while :(

EDIT
However the benefits of turning it off out weigh the problems it causes at present.

It may work well for established skinners but discourages new blood from improving their painting skills, it means one less avenue of interest which is also important for maintaining interest in the game. The ability for the community to provide content at various skill levels is a key reason for IL-2's longevity.

Mate, bit of a silly question?

Its a game.. I have used custom skins since day 1.. why? cuz they look better, its unique to me if i design my own and gives me a bit more identity

Why wouldnt you want to use custom skins?

Thats a fair comment dude but most would prefer the method thats means you don't lag when someone spawns with a custom skin or when you are diving on them ;)

Why cant the server just collect skins and force them out on login? Or go to the hosts website and download them?

One of the biggest parts of flying a sim for me is the skins,from the old EAW days,i have always loved to look at the skins.I play online(not CLoD at the moment,only trying it offline because of stutters etc)But the skins are a major part of a game for someone like me and many many others.
BUT i do know what your getting at,rather have good play than fancy bells and whistles :)
Just a point to add the talented skinners out there will have a field day as this game looks fantastic(just doesnt feel that good at the moment,but thats just prob my sys)

Cheese

You've misunderstood him I think Jamz, I think he means more along the lines of "what unfair advantage has someone got flying around with a custom skin [read: ability to cheat or gain an unfair advantage over other people] so what's the point removing them"

Agreed on the issue though, I love flying skinned :(

Would be interested to know the reason this feature has been widely turned off? Does it cause lag on servers?

CS on hold at the moment, no point doing more until this is sorted.....

Yeah,lol,totally misunderstood,I'm all for custom skins mate,maybe I have'nt explained myself clearly.

DaRat you are right,my point was why would the guys hosting the server stop people from using custom skins,and are they frightened that guys maybe getting some sort of advantage using them.................please,I love custom skins too and like yourself Jamz I have used them from the beginning.

It seems I misunderstood you as well. My apologies.
Many claim that the custom skins loading cause their game to Stutter, freeze, or crash.
Personally I think its a bs excuse, and may be more of a hardware or connection issue, but alas that seems to be the reason.

:) sry dude

The reason some hosts want custom skins out is that, unlike Il-2, where all skins had to be 1MB, CLOD doesn't have a limit for skin size. Nothing can stop someone from using a 20MB .BMP skin. I look from time to time at the skins in the Cache folder that were downloaded by the game automatically while playing online and some of them are huge. :evil:

I love using personal skins and I think they should put a maximum limit for skins you can use online and be done with it.

Is there a way for servers to enforce a skin size limit? It could be a good workaround.

We're not running custom skins atm, not because we don't like them, quite the contrary :(

There have been a huge amount of custom skins that are fabulous. The problem is the majority of the stuttering in MP is caused by custom skins being loaded. So just imagine having 70+ players, (several plane spawns every minute) and as you are flying around your screen freezes multiple times every single minute. It's not a whole lot of fun ;)

I'm sure there will be some sort of fix in the future, but the smooth gameplay far outweighs having a custom skin atm.

I'm hopeful that in the future there can be a skin pack that can be assembled / downloaded etc, for the server and client, that will allow a smooth transition. Maybe it's just something in the code needing rewrote. Either way, it's not off because we don't like personal skins. Heck.., it's a shame I'm not seeing them anymore. But I'm glad we can disable them atm.

They are just like the old game. It was just after this last patch it finally actually works ;)