New Version Of Il2

[delta7]

anyone following the developments here

 

http://forum.il2sturmovik.net/ ?

 

any thoughts?

 

Personally I think the ROF team have done a good job but there are some worrying aspects in the dev updates e.g. having to do offline campaign to get upgrades, not something I ever associated with flight sims , more x-box shooters getting XP points.

 

good to see a lot of the old ubi names on the forums as well tho

 

we live in interesting times

[DD_Arthur]

Been following it closely and today I think they dropped their first bollock with this upgrade business. Pity.

[FoolTrottel]

Yes, very much pity full.

 

Why?

I found these words:

Like in every other game

 

Sod it, thank you very much, this is not for me...

 

IL2-series have never ever been anything like 'any other game'...  that's what made it so special, and so good!

[BadAim]

If they do as they say they're going to then it shouldn't be too bad. They are right after all in that the best pilots got the best attention for their aircraft, and the choicest modifications (especially the Germans). This practice actually got Hans Marseille killed. I withhold judgement for further news or until I see it, but I don't have any philosophical difficulties with the system, I'm even of a mind that it might make things more interesting.

Edit: The way I read the update is that all of the "perks" earned will be historical and not "gamey". I.E. perhaps a given level will allow you to upgrade your 109 F-2 from a 15mm to a 20 mm, not a plasma canon in the 40 watt range.

[Friar]

not a plasma canon in the 40 watt range.

 

but i have seen a document that says the germans were thinking about possibly inventing a proto-type that was similar to one of those so it must be in the game.........

 

 

 

[fruitbat]

Think it will look fantastic, sound fantastic, and be the best dogfight game yet.

 

Think the ground war will be sterile and very limited particularly in object numbers on map, and co-ops non existent, and the worlds worst FMB bundled in, and require a monstrous connection to host.

 

If you only like dogfight servers, it will be the best game ever, if you want more from a flight sim, its going to be another slightly missed opportunity imo.

[DD_Arthur]

Some solid news....but not from the devs own forum.

 

http://www.fscommunity.info/2013/07/a-trip-to-moscow/

 

A fifty v. fifty tank battle means they've managed to overcome object limits normally imposed by the Digital Nature engine.

[DD_Arthur]

BoS now available for pre-order with a couple of options and interesting prices!  Access autumn 2013 apparently......thats only eight weeks away?

 

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/802-il-2-sturmovik-battle-stalingrad-pre-order-program/

 

Astonishingly little hard info on the sim available yet. System specs won't be posted until the autumn and still very little in the way of in game video available.  The trailer released in the link above has actually put me off it! 

 

I think I'm gonna' sit this one out and await first reports.

[delta7]

I agree around 50$ for standard game and around 90$ for game plus 2 additional planes ?!! Im not risking that until I see some concrete reviews and specs

[fruitbat]

yeay! $40 extra for the 2 uber planes to kill everyone else online in.

[Crash]

I might risk £35 on the basic game. It will probably end up on the hard drive keeping RoF, Clifford and the DCS stuff company I REALLY MUST get round to configuring the stick and buttons for these

[DD_Arthur]

I'm getting an itchy finger.........getting more and more tempted to pre-order and effectively pay for the privilege of being a beta-tester!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QWlhoix6YU&feature=player_embedded

 

Video by Hooves who attended the press launch whilst the delightfully named 'Aborted man' does the flying.  Also, an interesting account of flying the alpha sim from Requiem who has made a great many 'how to' videos over on the RoF forum; 

 

 

   I know everything in the alpha is a WIP, so take what I report here keeping it in mind. Nothing that I write here is set in stone and I am just reporting on my impressions thus far. With the presentation done it was time to get into the cockpit and finally have a crack at this  I sat down and reflexively kicked my feet out looking for rudder pedals, but my feet were met by the PC case. Oops, twisty stick it is then   At the desk there was a Thrustmaster joystick which was of the type that gets pulled apart to separate the throttle and joystick. The interface is the same as RoF, but that will be changing for the release so I'm not worried about that. I had a glance through the controls and responses and felt right at home as I began adding S curves to the rudder and pitch because of Loft's advice earlier about how twitchy the Lagg 3 is. There were controls for mixture, prop pitch, all that good stuff so even though we won't have clickable cockpits everything will still be mapped so we have a decent level of CEM when flying an aircraft. Between the Lagg 3 and the 109 Einstein was taking plenty of photos of these various aspects, so be sure to check out his article on SimHQ for those. There was a few identical scenarios for the 109 and Lagg to choose from for the night, so I started out with my usual free flight routine when flying a new aircraft in a Lagg to get a feel for it before I decided to actually shoot at anything. It began as an airstart and I found the Lagg was pleasant to fly in general and would do what I wanted without much issue, but I quickly found it really doesn't like doing aerobatic maneuvers. It has an underpowered engine for this airframe and bleeds off speed very easily. For example, getting it to loop was a challenge compared to the 109 as I had to have close to 450km/hr to perform a loop effectively without just flopping over at the top. I was glad I applied curves before I started flying because even with the curves enabled it was still touchy. There is a hard compromise to make because of the shorter lengths of our joysticks, so I think using an elevator curve at the least will be necessary to help flying the Lagg effectively. The 109 on the other hand was an absolute joy to fly. It is clearly the superior aircraft against the Lagg and has great control responses. For example, aileron rolls were very snappy and precise compared to the Lagg. Later on I also put time acceleration on after spawning and climbed up for a few mins to get some altitude to put the aircraft through some spins. Again, the 109 came out on top here and was easier to recover than the Lagg. I almost didn't need to attempt a recovery for the 109 in a left hand spin, but the Lagg on the other hand took a bit longer to come out of both spins once it was fully developed. The Lagg requires a very delicate touch with the controls and it doesn't take much deflection to throw you around the sky. If I could equate these aircraft to RoF equivalents, I would call say the relative easiness of the 109 makes it like a SE5, while the Lagg is something like a D.XII which needs you to put the time in to do well in it.

 

 

    For miscellaneous stuff:The canopy slide animations are nice and when I pulled back the canopy on the Lagg I didn't note any discernable speed decrease. However, the sound difference between the open and closed cockpits is great. You go from hearing the drone of the engine to hearing loud winds in addition to it. I doubt you will see people flying online with their canopies slid back to hear other aircraft in BoS   I didn't bother sliding back the canopy on the 109 in flight for obvious reasons, but I would have liked to have seen if it flew off or something..  . I tried various pilot animations commands from RoF, but these were obviously a WIP as I noticed only a few of them working. I was also able to shoot off flares, so its nice to see they are being retained. The head movements could use a tiny bit more oomph to them, especially laterally when initiating a roll and maintaining maximal roll rate. The positive and negative G influencing head movement up and down is good, but there was little movement from side to side.The flyby camera could use some work to reduce the relative speed between it and the aircraft because the speed at which these BoS aircraft are moving makes short work of the current flyby view we have in RoF. The mods were interesting for the 109, I asked Einstein to take pictures of these, but from memory I remember underslung cannons, 4 bombs, removable headrest, and reinforced windshield glass. Loft told me these mods, and certain skins, will become available to you through the SP campaign as you progress, allowing you to use them in MP. I asked for clarification about certain SP campaign aspects and he said there would be no need to 'succeed' at a mission to progress to the next one. As long as you stay alive to make it back to base you will progress in the campaign. However, if you want more points you should do the missions which require takeoffs and landings, versus the instant action style missions, because Loft wants to reward players who spend the time doing so. I tried the various mods and noticed the reinforced glass seemed to be bugged though as it was broken every time I loaded it, but this reminds me of another point. Cockpit damage. In one of the missions vs the AI, I maneuvered into a position to let the AI shoot at me which it did with no problems. Its rounds wounded me, destroyed several gauges rendering them non-functional and graphically cracked/destroyed, as well as cracking the canopy glass in the process. A great feature for which I am thankful the team has not neglected!

 

    The big thing I really noticed between flying both of these was the feel of flying. There is quite a sense of inertia to these planes which is unlike what you experience in Rise of Flight. I noticed this particularly when I was testing the ground attack missions. In both the Lagg and 109 I would climb up and begin my attack run at about 30 deg nose down, quickly building up airspeed. I would make my pass, destroy the target, then climb back in a turn looking behind me to observe the damage, and it was the process of my climbs upward which were catching me by surprise. Both the 109 and the Lagg, but particularly the Lagg, would wallow out at the bottom of my dive as I began pulling out of it. Basically, I could have a positive nose attitude and still feel like I was sinking. The only other sim I have had this feeling is when I jump in DCS P-51. I know that is a strong comparison to make, but Loft aims to get a FM that is very close to the quality we expect from the DCS series and judging by how I felt after those ground attack passes I'm inclined to believe he and the team can do that. During the air-air portion of my testing I preferred flying the 109 over the Lagg. The 109 quite simply just does what you want it to do, whereas the Lagg you really need to concentrate and focus on what you are doing or else the twitchiness of the controls will put you at a disadvantage. It was becoming quite evident why it was nicknamed "the flying coffin." When it comes to the online component there is no doubt in my mind people will be gravitating to the 109 in this matchup, with teamwork being the name of the game if the Lagg's want to succeed.

 

    The level of detail and their transitions are great and what I have come to expect from my Rise of Flight experience. No popping in at a certain range, no dots, just smooth transitions which allow you to identify aircraft silhouettes at a reasonable range. Just as it should be. Clouds looked to be about the same as we have in Rise of Flight, but when I flew through them I didn't notice any condensation, so that's probably not enabled yet. There is also a great snow haze effect when flying at a relatively lower altitude as you look into the distance. Between being low with the snow, haze, and clouds, it almost felt as if the horizon was blending in with the ground at times. The ground object capability has also been improved a lot compared to RoF, and while I didn't get to see the 50 v 50 tank battle alluded to elsewhere, the amount of objects/aircraft in these missions exceeded what we can see in RoF. I saw bunches of tanks and other vehicles from both the Soviet and German sides, as well as the aircraft in the air, all doing their own things. The trucks with the rocket launchers on the top were very impressive. They had some great animation as they positioned themselves to fire off salvos, with each individual rocket leaving the launcher until none were left. There was probably about 10 of these in addition to all the other vehicles/aircraft, and when these salvos were being fired at night time it was the only thing responsible for a slight FPS drop during my play, probably due to the ton of lighting/shadow effects required of these rockets at night. Another animation which is awesome was the bailing out of pilots. The canopy flies off and and the pilot falls out the back, with the parachute fluttering out the back in the wind before it catches and opens up. Unfortunately the bailout is not first person like in DCS-P51 (after the cockpit pops off it goes to 3rd person), but Loft mentioned it is one of those things he would like to have in the game down the road. I could however enter first person after I was stable in the parachute and floating down. The parachute and pilot are collidable objects, so don't try and be a smart ass and buzz some guy in his parachute or else you may end up killing yourself as well 

 

 

[FoolTrottel]

Watched the vid, read the text.

 

But. it all kinda stopped being relevant at the 5:00 mark in the video. 

WTF?

 

I dunno... I am gonna wait, sit this one out for a while... 

[DD_Arthur]

What happened of significance at the 5 min. mark, FT?

 

Try this one. It does look very good.

 

[FoolTrottel]

That leaning-out-of-cockpit experience... is the pilot attempting to go for a wingwalk?

Similar at 3'00 in the second video...

What happened of significance at the 5 min. mark, FT?

 

(...)

[fruitbat]

I'm almost certainly going to get the premium version, just because. Doesn't mean i don't have reservations, but its still going to be the best looking dogfighting game around for sure.

 

Plus i want the Fw190, even though it wasn't within 300 miles of Stalingrad, lol.

[DD_Arthur]

That leaning-out-of-cockpit experience... is the pilot attempting to go for a wingwalk?

Similar at 3'00 in the second video...

What happened of significance at the 5 min. mark, FT?

 

(...)

 

Ah...I see.  You can do that a bit in CoD too.  It's one of the things I really like about it; slide back the hood in yer' Spitty, lean out and look around and find Fenrir just lurking under your wing!   

 

What made me sit up was Loft's press presentation where he talks about Jeeeeerman performance figures based on recently de-classified Soviet tests of captured aircraft.  I predict thousands upon thousands of pages of angst from the crowd that likes to smother their planes in Swastikas!

[DD_Bongodriver]

 

That leaning-out-of-cockpit experience... is the pilot attempting to go for a wingwalk?

Similar at 3'00 in the second video...

What happened of significance at the 5 min. mark, FT?

 

(...)

 

Ah...I see.  You can do that a bit in CoD too.  It's one of the things I really like about it; slide back the hood in yer' Spitty, lean out and look around and find Fenrir just lurking under your wing!   

 

What made me sit up was Loft's press presentation where he talks about Jeeeeerman performance figures based on recently de-classified Soviet tests of captured aircraft.  I predict thousands upon thousands of pages of angst from the crowd that likes to smother their planes in Swastikas!

 

 

Yeah what is it about that crowd that turns them into such Nazis..................Oh wait...

[fruitbat]

 

That leaning-out-of-cockpit experience... is the pilot attempting to go for a wingwalk?

Similar at 3'00 in the second video...

What happened of significance at the 5 min. mark, FT?

 

(...)

 

Ah...I see.  You can do that a bit in CoD too.  It's one of the things I really like about it; slide back the hood in yer' Spitty, lean out and look around and find Fenrir just lurking under your wing!   

 

What made me sit up was Loft's press presentation where he talks about Jeeeeerman performance figures based on recently de-classified Soviet tests of captured aircraft.  I predict thousands upon thousands of pages of angst from the crowd that likes to smother their planes in Swastikas!

 

Well i'm not surprised.

 

Why they don't use German tests for German stuff, and Russian for Russian stuff is just plain stupid.

 

Just like RoF all over again.

[DD_Arthur]

Another video by Hooves.  Check out the bailout sequence at 5.55 too.

 

[DD_Arthur]

Pre-ordered today. Couldn't resist it after watching this.

 

 

O.K., it's a half-hour of two guys talking in Russian with subtitles but if you want to go straight to the meat and potatos watch from 26.00 for a circuit of the field and the kind of landing I make.

[Jabo]

Wow, that's worth watching the whole thing from start to finish - Thanks for posting this up Arthur.

 

I feel a pre-order coming on!

[BadAim]

Oh, damn! They're making this thing real hard to hate, methinks I'll be preordering it myself. It's very very pretty even without the bells and whistles.

[Crash]

I am going to pre-order next week.

[gec]

i'm not making same mistake twice. will wait for real ingame reviews.