Why are the AI planes always faster than me?

[Bounder!]

The information in that thread should be a good start. Unfortunately I don’t know of a single, all encompassing guide for the basics in IL-2. There’s a lot of info on the forums – sometimes it can get quite confusing as people debate things but there’s a lot of useful info in the threads here on the forums if you can trawl though it all.

As you say in your post, you have CEM off and you figured the game would automatically choose the best settings for you – I’m not sure that is the case? You’d think so but I have my doubts that the game will manage your engine as well as you can once you have learnt how. I might be wrong as I’ve not played IL-2 or Cliffs of Dover with CEM off but I would imagine you can get more out of your aircraft by managing it fully yourself. It can be tough to begin with, IL-2 has a very steep learning curve but it is satisfying learning how to control these planes.

You will need to read up on the basics like trimming your aircraft, and learning CEM including the radiator, fuel mixture and the fine and course prop pitch control of the fixed prop planes / rpm control of the constant speed props.

Also, with regards to your post, as someone mentions in that thread linked by paxNoctis above, the games AI are not constrained in the same way that players are. Because of this the computer AI can be frustrating when first starting out as they seem to travel at light speed and pull off manoeuvres that seem impossible. I’m no expert at all but all I can say from my experience that once you learn how to fly the plane fully and manage the engine you won’t find the keeping up the AI much of a problem.

I’ve linked a couple of guides that may be of use:

IL-2 Cliffs of Dover Manual can be found in your game installation folder on your hard drive e.g. Steam\steamapps\common\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover\manual

Nuggits guide on mission4today (written for the old series of IL-2 but some of the information might be useful): Link

CEM guide on mission4today (written for the old series of IL-2 but some of the information might be useful): Link

Videos of basic flight manoeuvres on Virtual Flight School website under the basic training tab: Link



[EDIT]

Mixture:

You may find when flying at altitude your plane becomes unstable and begins bumping and spluttering – this might be because you do not have your mixture set correctly. Also, managing mixture settings saves fuel and gives you longer in the air.

From the IL-2 manual ( p38 of 118 ) “Depending on altitude the amount of fuel added to the intake airflow needs to be adjusted. More fuel in the mixture makes it rich; less fuel makes it lean. Mixture needs to be richer at lower altitudes and leaner at higher altitudes”

( p69 of 118 ) “CoD models realistic changes in exhaust flame colour based on mixture setting. These were historically used to properly set mixture levels. Watching your exhaust takes all the guesswork out of managing your engine!” “Proper mixture produces a small amount of blue flame from the exhaust”. “When the mixture is too rich i.e. higher % than needed, the flames will be orange or red”. When the mixture is too lean, i.e. lower % than needed, the flames will be longer trails of blue”.

TLDR: For take off and landing you want rich mixture. As you gain altitude you may find you need to adjust you mixture to a more lean setting. Gauge your mixture setting by leaning to the left / right of the cockpit and looking at the exhaust flames – you want to set mixture to “a notch below the setting where the red or orange flames appear”.


Radiator:

When open, reduces engine temperatures and stops your engine exploding! In reality, the further open the radiator, the more drag is induced slowing you down – so you would balance how far open the radiator to sufficiently cool the engine against the induced drag slowing you down. As far as I’m aware, radiator drag is not modelled yet in CoD so you may as well keep it fully open.


Co-ordinated flight, slip and ball instrument and aircraft trim: covered nicely in this thread: Link