How Realistic Is The Simulation Mode?
 

First forum post here goes:

I love the demo, but I'm curious, how realistic do all of the IL-2 veterans out there think the Simulation mode is? I'm not a total sim noob, but the last sims I played were the old Dynamix and Larry Holland games, ok maybe that does make me a noob, but it seems like the stall characteristics in the Sim mode are a little too unforgiving to be realistic.

I've read through the threads on this and seen various people's suggestions about turning down the sensitivity, which I have done, but it still seems unrealistically harsh. I've gotten pretty decent at flying the Spit, but the Mustang handles like an airborne freight train no matter what I do, even after firing off all of my rockets its still amazingly sluggish for such a renowned airframe. Is that realistic?

I guess I am more soliciting the opinions of others than venturing my own, being that I feel mine are a bit noobish. Also I realize other threads have touched on this, but I thought it might be constructive to have a thread specifically dedicated to people expressing their opinions on the faithfulness of the different airframe's stall characteristics, mods please delete if you feel this is repetitive.

So what do you guys think?

I don't know how realistic the handling is and anyone here who would claim to know would just be comparing it to other video games. But I can say that using a flight stick makes it 100x easier to control the planes without adjusting the sensitivity.

I don't know if it's because the devs used flight sticks more often when tweaking the controls or what but it's a night and day difference. Although the P51 is still a bit harder to fly in comparison to the Spitfire.

Yeah of course, but if there happen to be any WW2 vets out there please come forth! Is Adolf Galland still alive? Chuck Yeager? Maybe their ghosts?

Barring the near impossible, what I really mean is how do the stall characteristics compare to the original IL-2, which I assume most people on this forum trust as a gold standard.

The flight models/ flight dynamics are very close to the pc version. As for your question about realism. Digg around the web, the characteristics you are experiencing with the P 51 are pretty close to the descriptions of WWII pilots.
There are videos out there where Vets talk about the p51 doing things just like it does in the game.
DESODE

very helpful, guess I just need to get more better-er.

~S~

Desode is right-on.

So when the P-51 is referred to as the "Cadillac of the Skies" it's because it was a horrible barge that couldn't turn properly?

Well, to me it sounds likely as the shape of the two is very different. And you'll have to admit that the Cadillac is a pleasure to look at, but not really to drive. :grin:

I've owned a large number of flight games over the years, some arcadey, some serious sims. I have never invested really serious time into the sims, due to, surprisingly enough, lack of time. So I'm definitely still a flight noob compared to some PC enthusiasts that may be here, though I've sampled a great many game's flight models on both PC and console. Never flown a real plane though.

My take is that the Sim mode is unrealistic. If spitfires and mustangs really stalled and spun out at the slightest attempt to turn like they do in this game, the Luftwaffe would have conquered the world in a week. Something is seriously off.

Why don't you play Arcade then people will ask? Well, I don't want the turbo speed and 1 hit to destroy a Heinkel damage model, that's why. Also the mustang handles kind of poorly, even in arcade mode.

Please don't interpret my post as bashing this game because some things like the graphics, the terrain and the number of planes onscreen are the best I've ever seen in a flight game! I think a patch for the stalling/spinning issue could really unlock this game's full potential, or better yet for us semi-experienced noobs, another mid-range realism setting, as I've suggested in the developer's thread.

The Spitfire is absolutely fine, I can fly the whole Dover mission on simulation with a pad without stalling. It's just the P-51 that *seems* a bit wonky, it's flyable but it's just not nice to fly.

Wow, you've got some skills, seriously. :) I can get a bunch of Heinkels without stalling but when it comes to the Stuka section, it's just one stall/spin cycle after another.

If you really want to enjoy the game then get a flight stick. It will make all the difference.

I actually have an Aviator believe it or not. BUT I did just try the trick of decreasing the elevator sensitivity, and I mean not just by a bit (like I had tried before) but to 25% of its original value, and that seems to have solved the worst of the problem! Thanks guys!I also set the aileron to about 85%. I think ICC needs to provide a note of this in the manual, or a sticker inside the box, or a patch which sets the default sensitivity to 50% because so many game reviewers are going to be put off by this issue next month, it could hurt their impressions.

Yeah I can see that a lot of people will be put off the simulation mode by it, believing it to be almost impossibly difficult. Which is a shame because I think it provides the best experience.

I think taking it down to 25% is a little too far and will hurt maneuvers. For pad I used 10 notches up from the left on both sensitivities and for stick 12 notches up from the left.

so 10/18 for pad
and 12/18 for stick
on both sensitivities

those feel spot on. Still can stall on full lock but right on the edge so as not to limit ROM.

If you reduce it too much you will hurt the maneuverability of the plane. When you stall does not only depend on the pull of the joystick but also on airspeed, angle of attack and other factors.

So a sensitivity setting that will make stalling impossible will avoid sharp turns.

+1

I made this same point on another thread:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...9&postcount=14

Thanks for confirming. I got this impression while playing the demo with my joypad. Those WWII birds are quite different compared to fly by wire planes like the F16 in Falcon 4.0.

They are like historic sports cars. No ABS, TCS, ESR or whatsoever that save you if you make a mistake, but also lots more fun as you are in control of it and no computer holding your hand. :)

Exactly

Anton said the audio before stalling was glitched, so will be fine in full game.

He never said anything about it being fine in the full game, and I am fully expecting that it will still be glitched.

When the demo came out, the game was already going gold, and there is no changes being made. We will most likely be waiting until a patch, which isn't going to happen until after the first batch of DLC. :(

That's ridculous. I've had several 360 games that download a "patch" on the first day of release. 1C could have a patch ready and approved by Microsoft for release day (over a month away). I guess it's really up to the publisher in the long run though.

Ye what i ment was, even if it happens in full game, they'll patch it.

who is techland?

Both pairs of things are unrelated.
DLC is not related to Title Update.
Demo is not just Full version with reduced content. It can have different set of glitches :)

And common sense.
Probably, there will be more (other) glitches found in a full version, and publisher can make only one one patch (for MS) without additional approvements, agreements, etc.

Right now, we are gathering feedback.

Whoops I meant 1c/505!!! Sorry, I'm traveling between the BOP and Call of Jaurez forum too much :)

To me, its to stally, but then i figured that it was the stupid sensativity on the pad, then it felt quiet like the pc version, though i think the models are to explody and explode far to easily when you are trying to land. normally, itl just fall to bits, but i suppose its a easy way of covering up lazyness lol.

In regard to DLC and Updates... I was just repeating what you said. http://media.ign.com/boardfaces/9.gif


.

Yeah.
Actually, update won't appear before first DLC will be approved, not available on marketplace.
Because it was already scheduled.

Flight model feels like IL-2 4.x to me.

OK here's a historic question:

In a real Spit or P-51 would you even be able to turn the plane way beyond its threshold at 250 mph, given that the controls are purely mechanical? Would you have to be He-Man in order to do it? I've seen WW2 pilots talking about how in high G maneouvers it takes a huge amount of physical strength to work the stick.

My problem isn't so much with climbing stalls, that I totally get, its with turns. The Spit is a joy to fly, the P-51 on the other hand, uhh it seems like the plane itself was more of a threat than the Germans, but I've read that most pilots really loved the P-51.

I can't wait to see how the other planes fly though, esp the 109 and the Fw-190 D-9, thats my baby!

When Resident Evil 5 came out it downloaded a patch on the first day, and the second day, and the third... there must have been like 8 mini patches for that game. And it never had to deal with the problem of flight. :-P

The only time high G's come into effect is at higher speeds. Like trying to pull out of a dive at 650kph. I've heard a story of I believe a P-38 pilot literally breaking his leg pulling on the stick under a load. The elevators become harder to operate the more wind resistance they have... it's like sticking you hand out the car window at 65mph versus say 200mph.



That's becuase the Spitfire is a plane designed for turning fights. The P-51 is not. Most if not almost all american planes were "hotrods"... big powerful engines, fast with poor low speed manueverability. forget what you see in the movies. Pilots of say a p-51 / cosair/ p-47 / f4f /etc would use tactics involving speed and superior position. dive in fire off a burst then climb to a higher positioni. If there was no energy and they were caught at low speed with a bandit on their tail they were already dead.

Another Boom and Zoom hotrod...but it's small with powerful cannons, quick roll rate, and good high speed turning. Which means its actually good at the scissors at speed. It can hold its own with the turn and burn planes...just got to keep the energy high. If you drop airspeed with no way to recover you are a sitting target.

Yeah, which is why my favourite WWII fighter is the Spitfire XIV. It might be heavier than the beautiful to fly Merlin Spitfires, but it is faster and quicker climbing/diving than a P51D or Fw190D, and it can still turn inside the majority of late war fighters with ease. Its combination of speed and manoeuvrability means it is one of the few planes that can be used well at both Turn-and-Burn and Boom-and-Zoom tactics.

Yes an awesome plane! Well..I'm really better with just a BnZ fighter... I'l take the F6F Hellcat for that. I really like that plane.

Except the P-51 was designed for the British and the P-51D even used a version of the Merlin engine that powered the Spitfire!

I like the F6F for that role too. It is very good against early-mid war Japanese fighters, and I love its ability to absorb damage and keep on fighting.

True, but the P51D is still heavier than a Spitfire, even the Griffon powered Mk XIV, and it gains its high speed through good aerodynamics and a laminar flow wing, not a high power-to-weight ratio.

Higher weight and a smaller wing area means the P51 cannot turn with a Spitfire, but its turning circle is marginally better than the German Bf109G and the Fw190, and its high speed roll rate and instantaneous turn are much better than the Bf109. This means the P51s manoeuvrability, while not outstanding, is sufficiently good to take on German fighters, unlike the P38 and P47 which were built around American air force specifications calling for heavy long range fighters.

Also you have to think of the fuel load, in il-2 1946 the p-51-5NT and 20NA fly the same way. In multiplayer if you fly the P-51D in 1946 it will help to go in battle with less fuel. I hope it works the same way in birds of prey. So torque fuel-load and payload will play a big roll in simulation. And try to keep the the axis blind by the sun.

Yeah, I always do that with P51s, and I like to fly the P51B-C too because they are a bit lighter than the D.

Good insights! I've been more ginger with the mustang on turns and loops and its now much more fun, I even downed my first 190 so thanks! The ground targets are still hard as heck to hit though.

Hey Doktorwzzerd, Here is some real info on the p-51 and here are the links to videos to back it all up.
I'm sorry but butterfield is not correct on all of his assumptions

Actually I hate to say it, and I don't want to start anything, but the P-51 was a amazing plane. It shot down TONS of enemy aircraft. It could do Crazy tight manuevers that no other plane could do. If a 109 got on a p-51 ones trail, It didn't matter, if the P-51 pilot knew the plane ! That 109 was done for. Example is this right here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBfwX...eature=related
I also recomend you watch the whole thing. parts 1 - 5

As for your question about pounds on the stick ? In the P51 1 G = 25 pds of pressure you had to hold on the stick. So if you were pulling 6 G's then you were fighting 150 pds with one hand and fighting blackouts and redouts. I recomend you check this site out also. You may have to sign up to see the videos but its free and these guys are AMAZING. They are called the Four Horsemen and they are a group of 4 aerobatic formation guys that fly original p-51's.
http://www.asb.tv/videos/view.php?v=4d13e87f

The video titled " #2 Becomes a Horsemen " explains the stick weight per G and you can pull some serious G's and not be going 600mph.

I have 17 solo hrs in right now, towards my private pilot license and if you turn to quickly in any plane it will do the same thing as the P 51. If you make to quick of a roll to the right it will flip the opposite way. This was more pronounce in the P 51, because its elevators-ect had to be bigger to handle high speed manuevers.
It just takes a lot of work to learn how to fly it, but once you do you'll be in love with it, because it can do things that no other plane could do in the WWII era.

If you want to learn, then do some searching around via the web and find the true history of these amazing aircraft.

These flight models in Il2 are the best there is out there, for any WWII flight sim. You can even go and find the real stats of the real aircraft and they will match with the game Spot on.

I hope this helps you out, Desode

That was awesome. Thanks for the video

The History Channel video is interesting, and the P51 pilot was certainly very good, but I would like to see someone try to pull off the manoeuvre that scored the first kill against me. If I was that 109 pilot I would pull up, passing over the P51, and ending up positioned above, with both an energy and an altitude advantage. This would effectively be fight over, or at least me having a major advantage, with the P51 caught at low speed, not enough altitude to trade for speed and not having a low speed manoeuvrability advantage over the Bf109.

yeh talking about that i came to hate the p51 and the 109 because they r not agile enough for me when im choosing a plane agility is number 1 on my list. fire power 2nd and 3rd speed then comes armour

They are two of the most agile monoplanes of WW2! Both have good roll rates, good turning rates, some of the 109's have climbing abilities like nothing else and the P51 has excellent high speed control responses. Besides, blanked statements about a 109 are bad since there were so many different versions with different characteristics. Even a G2 is completely different from a G14.

Granted you can get better turners and rollers (although most 109's have superb low speed turning) but your looking at i153's or similar early war 'crap' planes unless you go for a 190 which has a better role rate than anything else.

Its the pilot, not the plane that does the shooting down.

Do your research and I don't mean history channel crap, i mean flight data reports, combat evaluations, many 109 variants that fought the P51, like the late G models had similar performance characteristics to them, some better some worse but such blanket statements are BS.

BTW, apart from one of the top 10 aces of all time, flew all flew 109's.

ok im not saying they r bad planes i just prefer planes like the spitfire and japanese planes apart from the zero

There would be a limit on the effectiveness of the control surfaces. The Spitfire (pick a variant, a MkV would easily out turn an XIV) would win though as it has a high lift wing. You can also add trim as well which would help get a tighter turn but then you'd loose all your energy which no pilot would do.

Uhh... if you do some real research instead of a TV show showing a some noobs in 109's and a lucky p-51 pilot putting himself in a dumb low energy positions then you might have more of an understanding of how the P-51 was actually being flown during the war.

Yes the P-51 had lots of kills and has a legendary reputation...but it sure as hell wasn't from turn and burn dogfights. The P-51 was horrible at low speed, low altitude affairs. You take a P-51 into a slow turning fight against an experienced 109 pilot and guess what... you were more than likely dead.

The P-51 was meant to be flown at high speed. Using superior BnZ tactics and refusing to turn fight is what this plane is known for. Speed is life for the P-51.

Yeah, a lot of people will look at any fighter with a good reputation and assume it must be fantastic at the only form of dogfighting they know, which is basic low speed Turn-n-Burn.

Therefore I fully expect to see a lot of people online trying to use the P51 in this role, and getting worked over by people who know how to use a Fw190 or Bf109 properly.

I know I can hardly wait. .. I learned my lessons the hard way from years of IL-2. BOP online is going to be like poping tin cans with a pellet gun. People have no clue about what real dogfighting was in WW2 apart from what they see in movies/TV. They see a planes turning turning turning. They have no idea of the tactics involved especially for the hotrod USAAF fighters.

Yea, like i can fly, but i dont know any tactics at all, hopefully someone can teach me so i can become a true ace!

The first thing is to start reading. There are all kinds of IL-2 guides available that will actually help you out...even for individual aircraft ;) . Google is your friend.

Here is a very nice beginner guide I remember reading some time ago. Should give you a start. Some of it pertains to the PC version and setup for online..but the aircraft, pilots and strategy section will give you a good start. According to this guide I would rank myself as class 3. There are folks onliine everyday that will tear me apart though. It's going to be very interesting to see the diffrerent levels of pilots coming into BOP's online.

http://combat-asylum.com/uploads/dow...ogfighting.pdf

Just want to point out that HE is alive and the 109 is not... He isn't lucky and he isn't dumb. I hate to be all "USA! USA!" but he is a fine soldier and did one hell of a job. I'd rather you call out the plane than the pilot. It's really easy for you to be a monday morning QB (if your not American, sorry for esoteric idiom), but you were never in a combat situation like this... none of us will EVER be in a real dogfight. Just remember that.

thank god too...if some of the posters from this forum were wingmen I'd have to give "friendly-fire" some serious thought...either that or defect...
________
Nevada marijuana dispensaries

Yeah your right..I went a little hard there. No disrepect to any vets out there. I was just a little fumed when I was told I didn't know what I was talking about.

Still though that vet might not be giving that interview if the german pilot/pilots were more experienced. It was a desperate manuever. I guess that's the thing though...you never knew... something like that might actually work since there's a 1 in 10 chance your up against a experienced combat pilot. It surely has nothing to due with that plane though.

No you are totally right about those odds! :P

I was watching that and my only thought was that the 109's were just sitting there waiting for him to shoot them!
And I know you didn't mean any disrespect :D

haha yeah the show is a mix of good and bad...sometimes they due a good job trying to inform the layman other times it's oversimplified to the extent of looking absolutely rediculous. "here I am! shoot me please!"

I don't think the Bf109s in that video were the right Bf109s anyway. They look like Bf109G10s or Bf109Ks, when it is far more likely they were Bf109G6s, probably equipped with the twin 20mm underslung cannon that where useful against bombers but hated by German pilots because they eroded the 109s performance and manoeuvrability. This would also explain the other Bf109s inability to out turn the P51 later in the engagement.

You know that's a good point. Were the underslung cannons an option on the G?..meaning... could pilots have the ground crew easily remove them if they were disliked?

The Rustsatz field modifications allowed for guns or other equipment to be fitted to standardised location points present on all aircraft from the G onwards. Therefore the extra 20mm cannon could be removed in the field, but without them the standard G6 armament of 1 20mm cannon and 2 13mm MGs lacked punch against bombers.

Normal solution was to have some 109s without extra armament escorting the more heavily armed bomber destroyers. Other solutions were to use Bf109s fitted with a 30mm engine mounted cannon as a permanent modification, or another Rustsatz kit with 2 30mm cannon fitted instead of the optional 20mm cannon, but these were late introductions and the 30mm Mk108 had too slow a fire rate and too low a muzzle velocity for effective use against fighters.

I cant follow it all that well while reading, and if i do it feels different when flying myself, i guess i have to go the hard way, fly alot hehe.

This has to be the biggest 'nerd-off' I've ever seen... as a matter of fact, this entire forum is NOTHING but flight nerds... you people know WAY to much about these things...
I love it :D

yeah I think David should work for the history channel :grin:

Agread, complete no life nerds. I really don't like it, but hey, you learn a thing or two... plus i'm bored and like the game.

Dude if you like that you should check out the official PC forum over at UBI

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/ubb.x?a=fr...102&f=23110283

people have made this game (or WW2 fighters) their life, some of the stuff they know is unbelievable haha

Also, isn't it true that BF-109 pilots were often concerned about pushing their plane to the absolute limit in a turn because the wings were quite weak and might snap off? I'm sure I've read that in 'Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain' by Len Deighton.

You got that right. Console people aren't going to look up the aircrafts stats and fly the plane according to their strengths. I do however disagree on the p-51. In arcade mode, yes everyone will fly it ,but I don't think hardly anyone will use it in full sim because no one will know how to use it.
Even Gunther Rall said the p51 was the best high energy fighter of WWII. Your being a BF-109 fan I'm sure you know who he is. I got to meet him when I was 15.

Personally I'm a FW 190 guy. I will however say that when it comes to Vertical S fighting I would take a P51-H.

Its going to be fun playing online when Sturmovik hits console. Thats for sure !
I hope some of the console players give Sim mode a chance and stick with it.
DESODE

LOL, Sorry if I got you upset butterfield, but you lumped the F4U in there when you mentioned bad low speed manuevering aircraft, and it had a stall speed of 70.5 mph ! So I thought I would pick on ya some. I didn't think you'd take a post so serious. Do you let people get under your skin that easy online ? Just kidding.
If your a Il2 vet then your alright in my book and if you played it for long then I'll assume you learned to know your aircraft stats.

DESODE

I love Sim mode but I do wish it'd let you do one thing...

Keep a target locked so you can track it more easily*. I'll certainly be getting an AV8ER because there is nothing more awkward than keeping that bloody thumb stick pressed down, trying to look around whilst also control the aircraft. In Over-G it was easy because that's all the right stick did: look around but yeh...

I generally dislike any function which forces me to press that stick button unless it's a minor function. Looking around, however, is somewhat key to survival. :P

Anyway, just my 2 pence worth there and I know any awkwardness I experience will be mitigated by the fact that everyone is pretty much on the same playing field with the controls.

*Surely it could be integrated without having to have the unrealistic highlighted target box around it?

Edit:

P.S

I quite like the P-51D so far. I find it totally fine to fly providing that I'm extremely careful with the controls.

Sorry to break your preconceptions, but its quite possible to have a life and still have a good knowledge of aircraft or indeed any other subject (I draw the line at Trekkies though:-P). Most nights I'm down at "The Watering Hole", which is my Uni's own Bar, with my flatmates and other friends, and if you have noticed that sometimes my posts are a bit rambling that would probably be because I'm still a bit drunk:)

I don't think that was a major problem with Bf109s. Sure there were some isolated instances of wings coming off, but the 109 couldn't really pull off very high G turns because the elevator got disproportionately heavy at high speeds.

Sure I've heard of Gunther Rall. One of the Germans top aces. Don't think I was being down on the P51, flown properly it can be absolutely lethal, and because of the way its performance envelope is so close to a Fw190Ds but it has a better sustained turn it can be a real pain in the a** for a Fw190D Pilot.

All I was saying is that it is poor at low speed dogfighting, and because of its reputation it will probably attract a lot of noobs who will use it this way. I suppose you are right though. Noobs won't be flying in Sim.

As for the P51H, it is really a contemporary of planes such as the Ta152, and so shouldn't be directly compared to the late model Bf109s and Fw190s because it was introduced too late for European service.

LMAO 10/10 for that LOL!!!

Hey thanks to all of you guys, theres a lot of great information in this thread! I'll check out all of the guides and keep practicing, when the MP comes on line, watch your back!;) Has anyone suggested organizing a forum squadron yet?