[Luno13]

Available in the stock game for all of the flyable planes, but I'm not sure if they're affected by airspeed.

This is the first time I've heard about it. Are you sure it isn't a mod?

Even worse, think of all the commands the crew might give if they were to coordinate gunnery! Consider just this command: "Nose here. Incoming bandit, 1 o'clock high. Tailgunner, get him as he passes." That's 7 different routines the AI has to figure and 7 different phrases the voice-pack has to parse. Multiply that by 11-13 for the crew of a heavy bomber and you've got literally thousands of different permutations!

Well, it doesn't need to be that complicated. As long as any one gunner is alive and "sees" enemy aircraft, there can be a general call-out. At the very least, just one line "Enemy spotted!" will do just fine.

But, most players don't care about any plane that doesn't have guns or bombs on it.

That's why you make a system of points: incentive for those that need it. But I imagine that there may be more interesting projects. I was probably over-reaching with reconnaissance objectives as nothing like that has ever been done in a game before anyway...but I would be quite happy to fly transport duties too in a Ju-52 or C-47, or tow gliders in a Pe-8 (now possible) or He-111 Z or in a formation with 3 Bf-110s...Or even gliders themselves!! (with points bonuses/incentives for online players for landing and delivering the goods).

Ground Killed Planes: Planes destroyed on the ground were, paradoxically, always counted as being less valuable than air-to-air kills, even though they were often harder to achieve. So, the 20-30 points for a ground kill vs. 100 for an air kill is sort of realistic. Anyhow, static aircraft are way too easy to kill.

Interesting tidbit, but online is a different world, and people do things for slightly different reasons.

Unrealistic Torpedo Bomber Behavior: Going for small ships you can take out with one bomb/torpedo is a potentially historically valid choice. Fatal damage to a ship wasn't always obvious, since fire or flooding could take hours or even days to kill a ship. Pilots in subsequent attack waves might see the main target(s) all on fire and "sinking" because they were down at the bow or stern, and decide to take out undamaged ships instead. Cautious/ cowardly pilots might be deterred by intense AA from a capital ship and decide to take out something less well armed.

Good point. But ships have guns in Il-2 too right? Some players will want to be cautious or avoid the BBs outright. But in the game there is literally no point to attacking a BB, whereas in reality, there would be some alternate source of motivation.

Small Bomber Formations: Small formations are already available as a coop option. Just have the server admin specify that bombers only fly as flights, and that human players should choose the lead bomber if they want to be flight leader. If you want to be sneaky about letting other players know which plane you're in, don't fly lead. For dogfight servers, flying solo is the name of the game. Get some friends who also want to fly bombers, have them spawn when you do and form up once you're in the air.

This was possible a few years ago, and I have done it, but the online community is shrinking. Also, why settle for a three plane formation with friends when you can have a 12 plane formation with AI and friends?

Incentives for Escorts: Incentives for escorts bringing the bombers back are already available in some online campaigns, and the admin of a well-run coop server can make escorting bombers worth your while in subsequent missions. Complaining about lack of teamwork on a dogfight server is futile.

Well, there is indeed a greater sense of camaraderie in coops, but that's because everyone waits for ten minutes in the lobby, and all spawn at the same time. Dogfights have way more potential because the player can join or leave as his/her schedule permits. I don't expect a perfect finger-four from complete strangers, but a point system with adequate rewards could serve as an incentive to do something else than just fly directly to the enemy lines at full power and get shot down in three minutes.

People and Animals as Targets: Troop concentrations, cavalry, horse-drawn vehicles and livestock are all available as mods. They look a bit funny when they move, but they're otherwise beautiful. The problem is that adding human or animal targets to the game would alter IL2's ESRB rating, so they cannot be added to any official patch.

I'm not familiar with all of the legal issues, but what about the modeling of pilot death in Il-2? The pilot can slump in his chute, crumples when he hits the ground, the screen goes red to black as he bleeds out, fleeing truck drivers can be strafed, and the game displays certain online status messages such as "X turns Y into a heap of meat!" . Are these not a part of the rating? Again, graphic gore isn't necessary, but maybe the horse and infantry can just disappear, fall over, or stop moving?

Fuel Tanks: Fuel tank switching, fuel shut-offs and manual fuel pumps would require massive recoding of the game. Currently, all fuel tanks drain at an equal rate. Load balancing if fuel tanks drain at a different rate, figuring out flow rates for pumps, recalculating performance based on differential fuel use/loss, figuring out damage to fuel pumps/shutoffs, and so forth would be a massive headache.

I agree, but something should be done about the practical death sentence of getting a fuel tank leak or grey smoke when over enemy territory.

LSO: An LSO would be a nice feature, but it would require a lot of modeling and coding for relatively little gain.

There is a nice ILS feature in Il-2 now. When the player is to the right of the glide slope, long beeps play, to the left, short beeps, and right on the money, a long tone. This is inherently all an LSO would have to do... just with an infantry figure and flags. I guess putting that on a ship would be harder, but not every object on ships is static (guns).

Aircraft Fragments Causing Damage: Big enough airplane parts already do cause damage if you hit them.

I was never aware of that. As far as I can tell, a nearby explosion causes the damage, but not impact with parts.

Cloud Types: One step towards another usual wish list suspect: dynamic weather.

I wasn't expecting dynamic weather (quite a coding challenge I bet) but at least user-selectable high-alt clouds in the same way we can select low alt cloud density and height.

Pe-2 Belly Gunner: Other than being cool eye candy, what would this get you?

Completeness.

IL2 Field Mod Gunner Position: Do you really want to simulate the world's worst job? Would require creating rear gun cockpit and there might not be sufficient references to do so.

It's fun for a masochist like me - the later gunners didn't have it easy either. As for cockpit, it shouldn't be different from stock. A hole was cut and a canvass strap was used as the seat. This is the same in all Il-2s in the game. The guns can come from the TB-3.


Again, these were just ideas and suggestions. I know it's not a perfect world with infinite resources and manpower (and if it was, I would have the skills, time, and passion to program things myself). DT are working hard, and they've added a lot of features we'd never thought we'd see, and more surprises are coming. It's difficult to not get hopeful once in a while