Friday Update, April 13, 2012

[5./JG27.Farber]

Originally Posted by klem

As for the idea that the 109 was generally the best aircraft in the BoB, that assumes they always had the advantage (which they generaly did due to the enforced defensive tactics of the RAF) but when the Spitfires had the advantage of height etc. the tables were turned because the Spitfire was a perfectly good energy fighter too, it just didn't have too many opportunities to demonstrate that. It was not as well armed as the 109 which is why you could put up a balance of attributes and claim the 109 was better but the 'best' aircraft depended on the circumstances.

Regarding CoD FMs, they need to be realistic as far as possible and provide close relative performance to the real thing although they are unlikely ever to be perfect and we should stop trying to chase an elusive 5% or whatever. In any case pilot skill and opportunity will often negate a reasonable or even large percentage of performance. Just give us FMs as close as you can get.

As for Gameplay and 'historical accuracy' that can only be achieved by mission design and engagement rules, assuming FMs are near enough correct, but this will always be prevented in CoD due to the limitation in numbers the game can support. This is why CoD can never represent the scale of the BoB, the best that can be achieved is a representation of a few of the raids. Mission engagement rules are hard to put in place in a general use on-line server because, for example, most Red pilots are reluctant to fly tight Vic formations, are probably incapable of doing it anyway, and fly combat spread instead for obvious reasons. The kind of scenarios flown in the MMPOG 'Aces High' were the closest I ever came with several hundred participants pre-registered and allocated to Squadrons/Units with clear rules of engagement and a moderator to kick/ban anyone who broke those rules. Oh yes, and you only had one life so you were MUCH more careful about what you did and how/whether you engaged. These take a lot of work to set up, even for a small scale representation of a few raids in CoD. I'm sure the community would really enjoy them but many would not because many just want to dogfight and get kills. You can fly for ages in those scenarios and never see an enemy (as it often used to be in RL) and recent matches between 56RAF and 5./Jg27 on a small scale have left us both searching unsuccessfuly for up to an hour.

So, lets have the FMs as close as possibe including the engines, no daft flight capability with half a wing, 109 pilots suffering and aircraft performance affected by fuel explosions, reasonably balanced AI gunners, etc. etc., and then we'll see how good we are.

Well said. +1

Originally Posted by Buchon

This is not about balance but realism.

If you want talk about balance go to some arcade game where climb with your Corsair like a rocket and shot with his eight cannons or to some Call of Duty or Battlefield forum where you can degree shotguns, MGs and pistols to rush with your Thompson like gun at will.

This is about realism, this is about make the most realist WWII airplane behavior out of real documented data and real pilots to make the most realist Simulator.

Its not the 1940s airplane engineers fault don't make Hollywood planes like.

If a plane have weak points is in the hands of the pilot get over it, in fact every plane have weak points, if your plane is weak at speed you should rely in maneuverability, if your plane is weak at climb you just should stay at low altitude.

This is not about balance but Realism.

This is IL-2 !!

+1

[FS~Phat]

Originally Posted by Osprey

This is totally wrong, the opposite was true. The standard escape for a Spitfire was a 120mph climbing turn to the right, which would cause the slats on the 109 to snatch, and they'd fall away in a stall.

Hell I need this implemented AT LEAST!!!

Yes your quite right and this was modeled quite well in 1946. I would often climb and stall out 109s if at a high enough altitude, and dive back down for the kill. Sometimes I would have 2or 3 109s in pursuit and I could turn and climb tighter and usually kill all if not at least 1 and then the others would be damaged and eventually extend and escape in a dive. This was one of my favorite tactics to take advantage of!

[Ataros]

Sorry for crossposting but just in case someone wants to get practical about FMs:

Originally Posted by Ataros

Here is a link to Spit Ia entry in IL2 bugtracker with links to documents http://www.il2bugtracker.com/issues/84 I asked B6 to forward it to FM programmers @ sukhoi.ru

It would be great if we keep all data in one place for easy access by the devs. Please vote for it and add entries for other types and 109 if their performance is off.

As for BoM we can also create entries as feature requests for future.

Edit:
In a link from Spit Ia entry we read:

Could someone confirm if this is correct and update the issue in the tracker? I am not an expert myself. We'd better provide the devs with reliable data if we want quick changes IMO.

Also there are some questions about bugs and feature requests above. I can be more efficient if you provide all the details about a bug/feature in the bugtracker first (and provide a link) to make it easier for luthier to understand what bugs you mean (with pictures and videos, etc.).

[furbs]

Did i miss something about a new GUI?

[addman]

Originally Posted by luthier

We wanted to make in-game graphs for CoD, but we ran out of time to build the GUI. And because we're moving to a whole new system for our GUI, thank goodness, we won't be able to make it for CoD.



Spit I got better. Its speeds at altitude got progressively worse than the real thing in the old build. The patch will make it better.

The Hurricane got about 20 mph slower, sorry. It's historically accurate.

The Blenheim got a major boost though, so - no reason to cry the way I see it.



We like the offline AI. It's realistically dumb on lower levels, and pretty tricky at higher levels. There won't be a huge change there.



Yes all of this goes into the one beta patch you'll be seeing in a matter of days.

If you have a dual core you will still see a tiny improvement, but it won't be as much as a quad or 8 core. Still, in the old build you still overused the first code and underused the second one, so there will be an improvement anyway.

Of course, there's a larger overall FPS improvement that's due to code optimization, not multithreading, so everyone will benefit regardless of system specs.

Originally Posted by furbs

Did i miss something about a new GUI?

Second time I re-post what luthier said.

[furbs]

Originally Posted by addman

Second time I re-post what luthier said.

Ta! it couldn't be worse than the one we have now.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by klem

I don't know where this idea that the 109 was a better dogfighter than the Spitfire has crept in from. There are many accounts of the Spitfire being superior when in a dogfight against its contemporary 109. Read Al Deere's 'Nine Lives' and his acount of several 109s trying to dogfight two Spitfire MkIs over Calais Mark at the time of Dunkirk, they brought three 109s down. Read Johnny Johnsons's 'Wing Leader' and his early accounts of flying with Douglas Bader. The 109's preferred tactic wasn't dogfighting, it was what we would call energy tactics. The 109's wing loading was far higher than the Spitfire or Hurricane which reduced its turning capability but it had a much better power to weight ratio which is why it could outclimb them. Heinz Knoke wrote in his book 'I Flew for the Fuhrer' that his most reliable tactic for evading them was a spiral climb which would leave the allied fighters clawing for height and risking a stall. Even Adolph Galland infamously asked Goering for Spitfires when told he must fly close to the bombers because he was aware of their superior dogfighting capability. It was not how he wanted to fly the 109.

As for the idea that the 109 was generally the best aircraft in the BoB, that assumes they always had the advantage (which they generaly did due to the enforced defensive tactics of the RAF) but when the Spitfires had the advantage of height etc. the tables were turned because the Spitfire was a perfectly good energy fighter too, it just didn't have too many opportunities to demonstrate that. It was not as well armed as the 109 which is why you could put up a balance of attributes and claim the 109 was better but the 'best' aircraft depended on the circumstances.

Regarding CoD FMs, they need to be realistic as far as possible and provide close relative performance to the real thing although they are unlikely ever to be perfect and we should stop trying to chase an elusive 5% or whatever. In any case pilot skill and opportunity will often negate a reasonable or even large percentage of performance. Just give us FMs as close as you can get.

As for Gameplay and 'historical accuracy' that can only be achieved by mission design and engagement rules, assuming FMs are near enough correct, but this will always be prevented in CoD due to the limitation in numbers the game can support. This is why CoD can never represent the scale of the BoB, the best that can be achieved is a representation of a few of the raids. Mission engagement rules are hard to put in place in a general use on-line server because, for example, most Red pilots are reluctant to fly tight Vic formations, are probably incapable of doing it anyway, and fly combat spread instead for obvious reasons. The kind of scenarios flown in the MMPOG 'Aces High' were the closest I ever came with several hundred participants pre-registered and allocated to Squadrons/Units with clear rules of engagement and a moderator to kick/ban anyone who broke those rules. Oh yes, and you only had one life so you were MUCH more careful about what you did and how/whether you engaged. These take a lot of work to set up, even for a small scale representation of a few raids in CoD. I'm sure the community would really enjoy them but many would not because many just want to dogfight and get kills. You can fly for ages in those scenarios and never see an enemy (as it often used to be in RL) and recent matches between 56RAF and 5./Jg27 on a small scale have left us both searching unsuccessfuly for up to an hour.

So, lets have the FMs as close as possibe including the engines, no daft flight capability with half a wing, 109 pilots suffering and aircraft performance affected by fuel explosions, reasonably balanced AI gunners, etc. etc., and then we'll see how good we are.

good post, we seem to have similar historical information

i like your idea of a different point scoring system. i believe that type of system could be worked into online server "successful mission" point system currently implemented by by luthier (as it was already partially functioning that way in the later server versions of the il2 series), and hopefully we could also get this in the (eventual) dynamic campaign server we will get.

the point however is, how can we get this concept across to luthier ? it would be a crying shame if this new advanced il2 simulator we are now at long last getting our hands on, would just go to waste with the teen air quake servers we get online right now, under the hood is a huge resource of realism and complexity we could potentially tap into, we just need luthier to wake up to its importance.

[addman]

Originally Posted by furbs

Ta! it couldn't be worse than the one we have now.

Well, as you may have noticed in luthiers post, they weren't too ecstatic about the current one that's for sure. If I remember it correctly, we were shown the current GUI for the first time shortly before CloD was released. I bet they just had to scramble something together as quickly as possible. I'm not defending the current GUI, it's horrible in almost every way but I can understand why it is such a mess.

[furbs]

Agreed, it looks rushed beyond belief. Will we see new one in CLOD right not just BOM?

[Madfish]

After some of the onslaught of moderator goodness appears to be over nothing seems to have changed after all.

Personally I find it scary that so many people cling to the "plane performance" straw as that is only a very small part of the whole picture.

What do you really want from the game?
Total balance? Then play 109vs109 or Spit vs. Spit and show if your skills are where your mouth is. Alternatively go and play some other "instant hero" game like Super Mario and stomp the hell out of some slowly moving carrots or other weird stuff.
Realism? Then keep in mind that a game can only do so much to re-create and simulate the situation, maybe 25% max., and that it means often ending on the ground - especially when going up against human opponents.



Personally I also have to wonder what all that "taking sides" is about. Do some of you guys want to re-create the war? How about you meet privately on a remote island and just go at it? This is just a game and history can only go so far. In fact this part of history is over.


As for me I enjoy flying and to be frank the plane doesn't really matter to me. Not even the setting. My favorite "real" plane isn't even in the game and even if it would be... what's the point of all this anger boiling up? I'm German but I like other planes as well, in fact I fly other stuff more than German planes (including space sim/games). No need to constantly take sides - it just spoils the fun and limits your options. We're all just humans from Earth.

Still, I believe they should strive to make the planes handle similar to the real thing. It can't be simulated perfectly of course but the game should try to be close. And after that? It's mostly pilot skill and pilot equipment.

Ok, so one plane is 5% faster or whatever, big deal... If I get home from work I'm sometimes so freaking tired that my reaction time is like 1000% slower. Or if I'm chasing someone but need to pee. I vibrate and jump around but my precision is down the drain already.

What about guys with hardware issues? No head tracking, crappo joysticks etc.? What about visual impaired or hearing impaired?
Are all of you the perfect health youth pilots that flew the originals? Are you always in perfect shape when flying online? Do you die when you get shot, do you have to deal with the stress and hormones, fear, sleep deprivation, bad food, being apart from your family, seing friends and comrades die all the time etc.? Can you actually be certain that your failure was due to your planes limitations or are you simply a not so great pilot? Why is it that people stop liking a plane as soon as it turns out that there is no ONE MAGIC MANEUVER TO KILL THEM ALL.

This could be a much longer text wall, literally. But in short words:

• If you want balance go and play Quake 3 Arena. Show if you got the aim and skills.
• If you want strategy play Civilization V.
• If you want dynamic real time strategy and intense input speed play Starcraft II.
• If you want to fly an old crappy piece of junk oldtimer warbird with it's strenghts and weaknesses then pick one you like that minute and day and fly it. Get shot down, respawn. This game's actually good at it.
• And if you want to fly the above but against a fair oponent then just fly 109vs109 or spit vs. spit. This could also be done with this game and no one can blame performance of the plane anymore.

Also please keep in mind that not everyone during WW2 was an ace. And even the top aces killed MUCH less than the average noob IL-2 player.

Also here's another update in case you missed it: The war is over. It can't and shouldn't be re-created for many obvious reasons. (such as not having the luxury of playing games e.g.)
Sometimes it feels as if some are forgetting the circumstances the real pilots and planes went through during wartimes which ultimately lead to the results we have today.