COD's manual?

[rga]

Firstly sorry if it has been asked before.

COD will bring flight sim to an unpredecented level, that's for sure. I read that flying in COD would be much more demanding than in IL-2, which means tons of new details and features are added.

One of the drawback of IL-2 is the lack of a proper flight manual. When I played IL-2 for the first time, I had absolutely no idea of flying: never heard about stall, angle of attack,etc before. The community is a golden mine where tons of informations could be found, but as one says: you can only find what you're searching. Honestly, I flew without knowing how to take off for one day, how to land for 1 week, how to recover from stall for 1 month, how to use trim for one year and I'm still struggling to figure out how to use prop pitch best. Furthermore, novice pilots make lots of mistakes without even realizing. I remember I couldn't manage to land on carrier until I figured out it's elevator to control speed and throttle to control rate of descent, not the other way around.

Therefore, I really want to see a decent manual that covers all the features of the game, not just listing them, but describing in detail how they work: from the very basic of aviation like angle of attack, to the dedicated one like how to override your engine to get extra power or crosswind landing.

Furthermore, it would be nice to know about the flight discipline. In our sim you can do everything what you want to do, which may causes several reprimand in real life: landing or take off without permisson, landing with too much deviation from glide slope, taxiing on grass... I would like to know more about the radio discipline, about take off permission signal, about landing pattern and glide slope, about how to follow radar and ground control... That makes you feel you're not the lonely cowboy in the air, but a soldier of a on-going war.

I know such a manual could be hundreds-page long and very time consuming, but it will certainly speed up the learning rate, as well as inspire people to fly properly.

[David198502]

i couldnt agree more with your suggestion!
ähm btw:how do you control speed with the elevators?if i proceed a landing i do it the way you described.elevators to descend and throttle for speed.

[=WF=RAW]

collector's edition will have such manual.

[recoilfx]

I'd love to get a copy of manual, but sadly I live in the US, so no CE for me. I hope the manual at least will be released in PDF form - so I can load it on my ipad, or bring it to a shop and print a hard copy.

A PDF of the whole map would be awesome too.

[_79_dev]

i couldnt agree more with your suggestion!
ähm btw:how do you control speed with the elevators?if i proceed a landing i do it the way you described.elevators to descend and throttle for speed.

The way it's done is just simple rule, you can't treat your controls as a simple up or down through yoke, also throttle is not sped up an slow down control. Simple example: level your flight of at certain alt and speed let's say you fly 180 m/ph at 10000 feet, trim aircraft properly that you not poising or gather speed and also vertical climb indicator shows no changes. Then push your throttle way to the end like in the car... here you go ... if you want to fly car I wish you all the best... Trust me your airplane will not speed up it will climb and eventually will slow down if nothing will happen with trim... long storry.


google "see how it flies" since I remember there is nice book to read about flight physics

[JG4_Helofly]

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=19293

Apparently your post is more successfull than mine ;)

[Extreme_One]

Ahh the good old days when you'd get a decent manual to thumb through before loading up your new game.

</reminisce>

Hopefully the training missions will be comprehensive and will teach most newcomers the basics.

Those that want to find out more will always seek the information they crave, they'll be heading to your favourite forum soon so please be willing to share. ;)

[BobTuck]

i couldnt agree more with your suggestion!
ähm btw:how do you control speed with the elevators?if i proceed a landing i do it the way you described.elevators to descend and throttle for speed.

David,

It's all a matter of balancing the effects of the controls really.

Increase in throttle speeds up the airflow over the wings, which in turn increases the lift 'power' of the wings, but for even more lift elevators are used to give the aircraft the optimal angle of attack (i.e. pitch up of the wings/airframe) which increases the lift even more.

The throttle is the thing that makes the difference here though, because if the aircraft is then throttled back, that same nose high attitude of the airframe is then making a giant airbrake throught the airflow, which is ideal for landing.

When coming in for a landing, if you just nose down using the elevators, yes you will lose height, but you will also gain a lot of undesirable speed, and so this method is a lot more uncontrolled (runaway). If you nose up to reduce your speed, and juggle it with the right amount of throttle, then that giant airbrake effect will happen (i.e. you will not have enough throttle to climb, but being a little nose high (using the elevators!) the airframe will be resisting the flow of air a little bit more, resulting in slower forward motion).

I hope that helps! :)

BobTuck.

[Blackdog_kt]

We do know there's a printed, 150 page manual in the collector's edition. I see no reason why this wouldn't be included as a PDF file on the installation disc/game folder to be honest, so i guess we will in fact get a more comprehensive resource to start learning the ins and outs of the new features.

[mazex]

I have no problem with a PDF manual, just look at the masterpiece in DCS A-10C. The flight manual is 669 pages long with very nice layout and images, and the GUI manual is 226 pages. Then you have the install guide at 26 pages and the short manual at 21 pages...

That's 942 pages. And they are well written and packed with info. I don't dare think of the time it took to write them. Talk about study sim ;)

At the other hand, the "interesting" instruments and routines from a combat sim perspective of a Spitfire should be rather quick to describe, and then just include a PDF copy of "The Most Dangerous Enemy" to read up on the Battle of Britain :)

[choctaw111]

A physical manual would be great.
Even in the age of PDF and electronic style literature, I will still appreciate being able to turn the pages of a real book.