How'd he/she get the FM? Man this gets weirder all the time.

quote: fly zo

and everybody knows that IL2 patches are used for public testing Bob features ( since huh i can't remember when) .... so you'll get your patch when 1C need to test some BoB stuff again

Z




Oleg has said the delay of 4.09 is because of the hacker's...thanks for nothing!

U just DONT get it do u?

Him and 20,000+ others ;)

game ... set .... match

Z

He obviously spends a lot of time hunting for these things.:)

don't you think its time to stop hiding behind Oleg's statements .... he is tied by contracts and legal stuff you know ;-)

Z

U do relize u just patted yourselfe on the back for NOT getting it.


seriously dude.....READ and COMPREHEND before u post.




And FYI...its this bs u keep coming up with that ticks pople of about this topic. I will ask u again....nock it of.

lol
Bitte sprechen Sie English oder Deutsche, oder Babblefish.

ages again .... hormones are strong with this one ( Star wars ....if too young to realize )

Z

I come from the thought that Mods=Cheating. If 1C wanted to allow Mods they would have created a section like in the Call of Duty games for Mods. I am by NO means calling everybody with Mods a cheater but what the Mods do allow, is doubt to be put in peoples minds that the enemy plane they are facing has that little something extra. Don't think that the people who started AAA are so innocent by the way. I have been on Comms with them before they started it and know some of the things they tried. Not saying that they put the stuff out there but I know what they did such as Spit 25lbs attributes in MKVIII, LA7 attributes in a LA5 and so on. They didn't add jets to 153ps because they knew it would be seen right away. Like I said the changes were made to test. This also in not hear say. I was on comms with them. They even asked permission to run them on the 334th server which I was a part of. We denied their request and also asked them not to advertise their Mods. When I created the USL league, Mods were one of the biggest issues we had to deal with. 1C definetly didn't add in enough security into the software to block the Mods.
Guys everytime you think a Sim or game is lacking your gona change it to make you happy? Is that how it works? Where does it end? Look at what happened to CFS series. They are some day going to come out with B.O.B and whats gona happen then? How fast are you people gona want to Mod that? People are never satisfied. Never. Somebody always has to ruin it for the others.

not if tied by contracts to Ubi ....

other stuff you've posted is just hear-say .... if it was true we would have x-wings flying all over servers by now .

Z

Well done,mr Fly_zo, call him/everyone with a differant oppinion a liar and or a wannabe cheat.


U sir, are a complete idiot.



P.S. Dont bother spouting bs back at me...u are ignored.

Read my Post again. I clearly state I was on comms with them. It was before they started AAA website and server.

ah, sorry then .... well, obviously they changed their minds after AAA was started

cos no x-fighters there and its been over a Year now

Z

LOL.

Baron. You, sir, are a grade A Knob.

:roll:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1.../PinkSunny.gif
Baron:: "nock it off"
Visualize Sargent Carter...nock it off Pyle, what's wrong with you!



Prince:: Oleg plans to allow some form of modding in BoB And Beyond. Now that could make Oleg a cheater by the playground bullie's original definition: Anybody who wants to mod or who allows modding.

mmm...better.

The bullies' definition of cheaters included those who ...

Wanted to mod.
Use mods.
Encourage modding ...ie possibly Oleg in BoB And Beyond.


The definition may have to change.

Sorry but wrong adress, if Copperhead and some other insult you, then that's the problem with you and him/them there is no need to spread BS on me. That is the problem with such discussion as you guys get so fired up by the flamers you also can't discuss reasonably.
Cheats are a problem now and they weren't before, you again here tried to justify and explain what I said but we both now it's BS.

There is also one thing even worse than cheats - the mistrust between players and the doubt you have at every strange thing you see especially if once you really saw cheating in use. I know you guys are just humans also and get offended reading Coppers and some other posts but if you would see just what you post from a "third" persons view you would find little to no difference between Copperhead's comments and yours.

Same sh1t - different wrapping ;)

Brain:: Actually, anonymous public servers always had severe problems with cheaters using game exploits, long before the mods came out.

The greatest reason people started flying in private servers and flying with people they knew was to escape the snotty behavior found in anonymous public servers. This is why modding is proving popular (edit -- is why going Mod is not hurting and so is popular) among many of the serious online communities now, as I always predicted. How did I know this would happen? Because I always looked at online play as nothing but social interaction.

Its not that easy. You can be associated by the people around you. It helps your position to jump in and put down false claims that seem to "take your side." I do that, although perhaps not often enough. Its hard to do with all the flaming.

Unfounded. right.
there is a donation space rigth there on there site.
And i've been told that thier new unified installer....does not require that you 1st have the game installed.

unfounded....no i don't think so.

If you are refering to proppitch age and stuff like that sorry but no sale, otherwise you could accuse anybody flying overmodelled plane a cheater - that's just too ridiculous...

You've been told but don't know from first hand experience? I've got to believe you are better than that. How would the unified installer work when there is nothing for it to install to if you don't need the sim installed first?

Flyingbullseye

Yeah i did. Was sent to me in an email from some one months ago when this whole thing 1st came up. the conversations as on what to watch for in a possible cheater. When i asked them the question...
"So umm how easy is it gonna be for the hackers to just rape everyone in the server with out getting caught?"

thier reply was a folder with all of the FM's. ALL OF THEM.
"All you do is edit the text files and repack the sfs. It's as imple as text editing a .mis file for a coop. the smart cheaters will buff their engine performance, and dm just enough not to get caught, but enough to own just about anyone."

Since i don't know what to do with this stuff i....even if i were the sort to use it, which i am not.....basically the point was to demonstraight how easy it has now become to cheat. yet, my attempt at making the point is moot since i have absolutley ZERO idea what would be doing.

I'll leave that to the pro haxxors kiddies over on that other site.
But that's how it came about. and i was attempting to show how easy it would be...and rather badly i might add.

I have not...nor will i ever download the trash posted on that web site.
I i fear that my PC may spontanously combust.
So no i have not tested it to see but rather am relying on information from
some one i'm freinds with on the inside over there. One of thier most trusted guys. The same person who sent me the FM's. One of the reasons i'm so up in arms about it. i KNOW what's going on behind the curtain.

and some of you can apint it any color you like but it's still gonna look like dog$hit in the end.

As for me proving the claims i make are not unfounded....the burden of proof lies with those whom think i'm BS'ing them. So prove what i've said is unfounded. prove it. i dare you. prove me wrong. you can't and you know it.

Brain:: Well that's what happened. Everybody accused everybody of cheating with game exploits, even accusing Offline-only players, and begged Oleg to close every exploit, years before the mods. The serious online community escaped the snotty gamer behavior in private servers, which is why the mods are not hurting the online community now.

If you wish to talk more about this, we can talk.

...well , all we have is FM post which was real and spotted by many, and lot's of :" i don't know hacking .... it was sent to me .... i'm honest , i wouldn't never ever" statements which can not get confirmed nor checked ...

Fact remains that FM has been posted in public forum .... there isn't one good and honest reason why would one do that no matter how he obtained data .

Z

Again how does that work without the sim?

You're source is lying to you, period, end of story. You ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO HAVE IL2 1946 INSTALLED AND PATCHED TO 4.08 IN ORDER TO GET THE UNIFIED INSTALLER TO WORK!!!!!!

In fact I did a fresh install and applied the unified installer and it didn't work, because I had forgotten to install the 4.08m patch.


Brain32, you are correct that we are guilty of throwing all anti-mod people in with the mods=cheat crowd, and for that I apologize. I've said before that I understand and respect the position of those who have thought it out honestly and still don't want to partake. It's the ones who spread flames, BS, and lies and do it loudly and with much venom that I rail against.

But to suggest that there was no cheating before the mods is ridiculous, I know you've been around for some time, I'm familiar with your handle, you should know better, there have been cheaters since the original il2. There has always been the suspicion of cheating as well, anytime I was on teamspeak with a group of people (way before the mods) and there was a person or a group of pilots that came in and started owning the whole server everyone in there would scream "cheat!" and start speculating about how they are cheating. Actual cheating and the suspicion of cheating are nothing new in this sim, it's always been there. Perhaps suspicion is up slightly but the actual cheating hasn't increased as far as I can tell.

Man you really spread this stuff on thick.... FUD seems to be your MO.

Since you seem to be in the know it's pretty clear you aren't after some of the comments you've made.

Let's just say there is a surprise coming.

Quote:As for me proving the claims i make are not unfounded....the burden of proof lies with those whom think i'm BS'ing them. So prove what i've said is unfounded. prove it. i dare you. prove me wrong. you can't and you know it.

sure look above at your earlier post, how did you mangage to find out all these "new Fans" were stealing?Thats some heavy"big brother is watching You" i dont even think the goverment could cope with that one :-P Amazing

What's funny about all this talk about cheating its not as wide spread as some of you would like to believe. The guys that have been able to get past simple server settings don't last long and are booted. In addition this sim for the most part appeals to older guys which aren't into cheating. The young ones are the trouble makers and are usually dispatched as soon as they are found.

The good news is there are several guys in the mod groups that are working hard on making sure cheats aren't spread or encouraged.

Are you for real? You actually think the folks that are doing the mods have made it so you don't need to purchase the game? You my friend need to really investigate things before making silly comments like that.

Fear mongering is what this is all about.

I've been the earth is flat, do I believe it or do I check for myself before spreading rumours????

How can you post some of your comments mate if you believe in hearsay and don't know facts, dodgy grounds for an arguement

I finally bought/upgraded to 1946 a month ago just for the mods, otherwise I had no reason to upgrade. Cost me $15 on amazon.com. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. What then have I stole? Nothing. I don't have the code, don't want it. All I have now are improved sounds, clouds, effects, cockpits and a few aircraft that as far as I can tell don't fly any diferent than the stock counterparts. I have yet to see any FM or DM mods, though what I do see at the site are new aircraft that the mod devs are putting a lot of time into getting it historically correct in most or all of its aspects within limits to the sim. The claim that people don't buy it anymore is made out of pure ignorance. Curious though, I wonder how this argument would be going if Oleg gave the community all the mod tools himself and said have fun.

Flyingbullseye

Your friends are deliberately giving you false information to egg you on.
They are most likely setting you up for exactly this. You get all outraged over your trusted misinformation, everybody jumps on you. You retaliate in-kind and things escalate out of hand. And all the while, your friends are laughing behind your back.

Nothing would change.

Opposition to mods was based in experience of the total stupidity that eventually resulted out of the use of mods in older sims (pretty much destroying the games online) and recollection of how the lack of hacks and mods was one of Il2's big attractions in the early days - not some misplaced allegiance to Oleg.

In reality, most anti-modders (such as myself) have voted with their feet and simply given up playing online and do not nother to ever comment - very few are actually vocal about it in forums. These days most pro-mod posts (even by fanboys) are just ignored. Its the occasional anti-mod comment that gets attacked and devolves into a flame war.

And now we find that opposition was always wrong, as I always predicted. The reason CFS failed was lack of support from the developer. Oleg didn't abandon his sim the way Microsoft abandoned their sim, although he severely crippled it himself by catering to the arcade dogfight server segment at the expense of his offline financial base and to some extent the online war segment also. That is a mistake he looks like he may have learned from.

WTE:: That's a good sign of the community maturing. The old anonomous public server bullies who dominated the forums slowly fade away from the playground by giving up the sim, by enjoying a no-mod sim the same as mod simmers enjoy a modded sim, or by going mod themselves.

I kinda disagree there Lexx.. I do believe that mods or the uncontrolled use of them was a direct factor in the demise of CFS... It got to the point where you just couldn't tell what was a cheat and what wasn't.. CFS3 was another big factor... the fact that it was such a pig.. I seriously believe that the difference is the community in this case is a huge factor in why we don't see what we saw in CFS.. That is one reason why it irks me so when I hear all this nonsense... We are not like most other flight sim communities because this sim is not like other sims. Most of us came here for a reason. We could have stayed in CFS but we didn't.. the integrity of the sim is one reason why, so to think that just because we now have mods the first thing every one will want to do is start modding FMs is insulting, and just plain wrong. For most of us the integrity of the sim is still a factor and the fact that so many mods are functional enhancements is a testament to that. If any one who has issues with these mods would go to the AAA site they would see what was going on... even if they still chose to not use them.

Actually I challenge anyone to go to their site and show me a single mod that is considred a cheat or an FM change for that matter.

Copperhead is talking pure nonsense and clearly demonstrates he knows very little about the mod groups.

Il-2 was the biggest facter in the demise of CFS. The first time I had an aircraft almost swap ends by pulling too tight a turn - I knew I could never go back to the MS series again.

No....i've been over there and i've seen what is going on. on the surface.
and to be honest there's things being done that arent 1/2 bad. Like the expanded QMB. I could even possibly get the sims regimentals fixed. IF i were to get behimd it. That will never happen though unless the sim is opend by Oleg.
But in the end...no matter what they do over there, good or bad, right or wrong.....at the end of the day it's still illeagal, it's still stabbing Oleg in the back, and it's still, no matter how hard they claim that they try, allowing the code to be accessed by those who would manipulate it for thier own petty reasons. And they are not the gaurd dogs of the sims code. AAA is not the only place that has it...or is useing it. So this fantasy that Jolly, FlyZo, Worf...and the others there have that they can some how keep the sims integrety secure and mod it at the same time is simply a figment of their own deluded imaginations. and that's just how it is.
but....it's starting to set in that the cats out of the bag, as Bearcat says. Once Pandora's box has been opened....it's not gonna get closed. far too mnay mod junkies roaming the streets now to lock em all up. Now that does not mean i'm gonna be caught with a glass mod pipe in my pocket going "hey maaaan please let me just get one hit."

but i am starting to see that the argument is becomming moot. and i'm growing tired of it.
and of THOSE f-ing ppl. so. i think i'm done with it.

thank you Sir .... please leave and never come back

you had your 15 min. of glory

Z

Wrong Lexx... CFS series was designed and sold as "open architecture" and the MS team encouraged the development of third party mods..... with no quality control on MS behalf, just caveat emptor.

MS FS series is exactly the same, though with a bit of behind the scenes (for the sake of mod/ add on makers pockets) "consideration". They've only just now reaslised (FSX) after months (years in fact) of being told... their trees bring the sim to a crawl on most machines.

What killed CFS2 was three things, perhaps four. One, was The Zone Monster... Two, was cheaters... Three was CFS3 (with il2 being already released) and Four, was third party mod/ addon makers taking things over.



A wider choice of how the sim/ game could be played Lexx... leads to a wider sales base.

Ummmm Worf? Worf is one of my squaddies.... He has nothing to do with AAA except for visiting the site.. Don't you mean Wolf?



I agree for the most part.. but the fact that the modding apparatus was so open didnt help either ... One of the differences is that here... we have a history of sim integrity... in CFS that was not the case.. When I came to the Zone in 2001 modcheat paranoia was going full tilt and justifiably so.... This sim was the only un modded sim available that was any good.. I think that was one of it's biggest selling points in light of MSCFS... I believe that most of the modders.. at least the ones at AAA (I cant speak for any other group..) want to maintain the integrity of the sim... thats why most of their mods are enhancements... that's why they take the steps to not promote FDW mods... They will happen.. and they would be happening if AAA existed or not.. but i think that since the sim was hacked years ago.... and that fact wont change it is a good thing that there is a place where people can get mods and not have to worry about the darker side of the issue.. As I said I am sure it exists... that potential has been since the sim was first hacked.. back when the only ones who had it were a certain Russian squad whose mane begins with an R... but I wont deny the good stuff coming out of AAA becuase of that.. and since once SoW comes out things will begin to shift.. I want to enjoy this sim as much as I can now... there are bigger moral issue on my plate than whether or not to use mods in a flight sim that I have paid thousands of dollars to enjoy over the past 7.5 years..

I'm not going to debate you on what is right at wrong here but I will debate you until the cows come home on several of the inaccuracies you've been posting. Things like the AAA mods allow people to play the game without actually purchasing the game. Utter nonsense and you know it.

Regardless if you think it's right or wrong the fact is there is a movement to continue to enhance the game. So far from what I've some very responsible and very good stuff being done by some of these guys. New Channel Maps Slot maps some new planes etc are proving to be great additions to the game.

I will let the corporate types figure out if it's right or wrong.

Meanwhile I suggest you look into some things and be less closed minded because there is some good stuff helping this dying genre.

Oh and before you lump me in with the bad guys not paying for my copies of the games I can assure you I've purchased IL2 and all the addons over 8 times. Oleg and crew have made some money off of me not to mention I promote it to anyone that is vaguely interested.

Can somebody tell me what thinks Oleg about the MOD?
Thanks.
S! All

CFS was not killed by mod cheating because most customers were Offline players. Even they could see the sim was not that great, especially since Microsoft botched the project long term, while IL-2/FB was pretty good at start. Microsoft abandoned the sim in an unfinished state. That's what killed that sim.


Wolf:: Exactly what I'm talking about -- "online" issues. You are considering "online" only. Online is irrelevant unless a sim is Pay-To-Play. Mods can't kill a primarily Offline game. Mediocraty and abandonment can kill an Offline game, which Microsoft CFS primarily was.

Even more interesting: Remember TAGERT at ubi.com. He told us that mods didn't kill CFS3, but accusations of cheating with mods DID kill it. I had to remind him that it may have killed "online" only, but not offline -- Microsoft killed offline play in that game. TAGERT even told us that he never saw a mod cheat incident, he was told about it by others he trusted, so he was still anti-mod in this sim because he was concerned over the potential for accusations of cheating killing a ONLINE sim. ie...lack of community. I agree with your (Bear's) view on the requirement for a bullish community, while a bearish community can kill an online sim.

Hmm. Thats a really good point.

kiss my ass. i'm not going any where bub so get used to it.

wo...this old bird is still gett'in tossed around. The issue is pretty dead. You got three choices here, 1)play with your friends, 2)shut-up and take your chances on-line, or 3) go offline.

Lexx::

Quote...

"Exactly what I'm talking about -- "online" issues. You are considering "online" only. Online is irrelevant unless a sim is Pay-To-Play. Mods can't kill a primarily Offline game. Mediocraty and abandonment can kill an Offline game, which Microsoft CFS primarily was."

So ya test ya skills online and keep the fun going. Lexx, online pay to pay or online Hyperlobby, etc... is still online. (Nice diversion attempt though ;) )

"Even more interesting: Remember TAGERT at ubi.com. He told us that mods didn't kill CFS3, but accusations of cheating with mods DID kill it. I had to remind him that it may have killed "online" only, but not offline -- Microsoft killed offline play in that game. TAGERT even told us that he never saw a mod cheat incident, he was told about it by others he trusted, so he was still anti-mod in this sim because he was concerned over the potential for accusations of cheating killing a ONLINE sim. ie...lack of community. I agree with your (Bear's) view on the requirement for a bullish community, while a bearish community can kill an online sim."

CFS3 was an extremely problemated POS, which was poorly produced and writen... it had so many bugs in it, cockroaches were embarrassed.

Mods - offline or online is supporting the hacking of the sim and there is no two ways about.

Tagert was wrong... I saw enough mods in CFS to make it not worth my while. One incident I remeber in particular was by someone named "movegetouttheway" .. this guy was all over the place taking out everyone in the room.. regardless to side. There were othrs.. There were real cheats and cheaters were all over the place in CFS... Thats why so many left CFS to come here.

so that was just another BS from you ..... good thing is that one can get used to any stench if present long enough so i'll live just fine with you around .

not holding to your own words = spineless
posting FM of stock plane publicly = shameful
trying to dig your way out of it = idiotic ... ups, sorry i meant :pathetic

Z

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: :mrgreen:

Bearcat,

sorry pal, but here you are wrong. You can't cheat in CFS3 because of the checksum comparaison system. It compares a/c data of all users. If you don't have the same, you can't enter the game, period. It's true that Mods killed online CFS3, but not because of cheating, but because of the impossibility-or almost- to find people with the same modded install. The checksum system worked so well that nobody could join nobodys room anymore if you wouldn't play vanilla stock. There were more than one online squads that gave up because of this. However, stock online rooms existed until they took the server down.

Wolf:: I assume CFS offline players greatly outnumbered CFS online players. Its a business thing.

HOWEVER -- I will say online has the potential to be far better than offline. Online War can offer *everything* an offline dynamic campaign can (if done right), but with the addition of Human vs Blue Side ... social interaction relating to aviation hysteria, or even semi-hysterical "what if" scenarios. My top fave is SAC vs PVO starting about 1947, both sides using German tech basically (well, kinda). Beats the canned copy-paste gaming industry standard USAAF vs Luft 1946 which is okay but very limited because the hysterical war ended and stopped German aircraft development cold. But you need a whole online squad to keep one B-36 flying all the way to its target heehe, each squad mate/mattette taking turns over the better part of a day. :cool:

I was thinking more of CFS1&2.. I could never get CFS3 to run right and I thought it was such a POS that I didnt even include it in the running other than to say it stank.... for me anyway.

Totally agree with you on CFS3 bearcat... CFS1, didn't do much for me but CF2 was worth it's weight in salt at the time. Which brings me to ask; "where did the Zone Monster grow from"?

it grew from the growing amount of mods being used.

I didn't keep CFS3 long enough to explore online and i was lead to believe the mismatch thingy was to ensure all players had the same files, not just be running "vanilla/ stock/ out of the box".... CFS2 had a cheat detect entry which could be used by writing it into the .cfg file... sad it was to see a squad member in a "supposedly" stock/ vanilla/ purist zone room on a squad night, with an asterix against their name in the tally room.


Lexx... when it comes to supporting a hack, there is no difference between online and offline as the hack was done to the sim itself

@ Copperhead,first of all i use the mods but I understand and repect your opinion to a certain degree and i definitely repect your right to post it but(ther's always a but)

The argument that the hacks are illegal to me holds absolutly no water unless you can say that you'v honestly NEVER broken the law yourself.

Say as an example,it would be safe to say that most of us here who can drive have on occasion put the ol pedal to the metal as they say and had a bit of fun at speeds that you could definitely say would be classed as illegal.Now speeding kills ppl and ruins families,make no mistake and we've all done it at some stage(hell I even lost my license when i was younger to such stupidity)even you I'm willing to bet(although pls correct me if I'm wrong)which of course would have put lives,even if its just your own in some danger.

So to turn around and use that argument as to why ppl should not use a game mod for a game/simulation that most ppl havnt heard of(their loss! :P)that harms no-one(really it is no-one) seems a little,well....hypocritical.

I'm not trying to insult you(really I'm not) or get into a sledging match but that just how i see it from my point of view.

thoughts?

~S~

Skarden,
Not answering for Copperhead, but it depends on where you draw the line. Taking for granted that all of us have speeded out of legal some times, it means that we can do anything? Selling drugs? Shooting at wildlife in a park? Killing your wife? I’m not saying that modding a game is like killing, of course, but don’t you think that your example is somewhat ambiguous? My opionion, of course.

Thats a fair call Furio,and to be honest it is a little ambiguous,my bad(I always lost debates at school :P)It's just that copperhead has said that one of the reasons he says he doesnt want to go the mod path is that it's illegal.

to me it's kinda like saying well this guy(anyone really) has hacked a game illegally and that is just NOT cool or acceptable,yet this other guy(once again anyone) who speeds sometimes and could cause an accident and possibly hurt or kill someone is ok.

To me it's a double standard.

That said I have seen threads both here and UBI that HAVE likened mod users to being all sorts of nasty stuff like crack heads and even pedophiles.

You are right furio and i agree but the line was drawn a while ago and we (mod user's) were very very very(i cant write enough very's here) wrongly pegged on the crack head and pedophile side by some of the anti mod ppl,defintely not all i know,just the loud ones that sometimes give the rest of you a bad name,just like some of the pro modders i guess.

Insults and “ad hominem” attacks should be avoided, period. In this you are right, Skarden. Both sides have indulged in this kind of sport, and this is the main reason for which I don’t take one side AGAINST the other.
Two examples.
Anti modders equate mods with cheats. In my opinion, this is a very weak argument. If my goal is to cheat, I would hack the game, and take advantage in absolute silence. The last thing I want and need is a place like AAA that attracts attention and raises suspicions.
Modders equate Oleg silence with an approval. In my opinion, this is a very weak argument too. Oleg’s silence may be explained differently. For example, he may consider a waste of time and money to sue AAA.
As for the “double standard” you are talking of, I think it comes from the very nature of the web. Being a place in which law enforcement is almost impossible, we all tend to ignore law, and talk of moral categories. In my opinion, this generates a lot of confusion. Your example about speed limits can prove it easily. In my country, if you over speed, you are fined. It’s an administrative offense, not a criminal one. If you break other people IP or copyright it’s another matter. That is a criminal offense, and you risk jail.
Different countries have different laws, and the web seems to have none. This places all of us in a difficult position, and we should make any effort to keep our debate within civil boundaries.

I was a latecomer to the IL-2 series, starting with Pacific Fighters. After that I back tracked and bought the earlier parts of the series. That would probably have been it.

--- but along came the mods, and it was that that persuaded me to buy the 1946 DVD, for the ease of installation that came with it. If it had not been for the mods I doubt I would have bothered.

How many other new sales have been generated like this? Or to look at it another way, have any sales been lost because of the mods?

Difficult to answer, without serious statistics which, I think, are way out of reach for all of us.
If I understand correctly, Spectrum, what are you implying is that more sales legitimate hacking (first) and mods (later)?
By the way, in my opinion, we should stop talking generically of “mods”. In AAA I’ve seen a lot of add-ons, albeit unofficial ones. For what I understand, FM modifications, or performances “corrections” are banned from the site.

Asking nice here...

This is the Il2 forums. We're all aware of MODS.

Oleg hasn't made a fuss about the MODS, but this is not the place to discuss them.

I'm sure most of you agree.

Discuss the MODS (modifications to IL2) where they should be discussed.

Thank you