I think this conflict is like protestantism and catholicism, one splitted from the other. There was a big conflict in the start but now one respects each other. I think they must be splitted at least,not forced by one side to be united( It would be awesome but I think Its impossible)

S!

In my experience the most FPS hit comes from smoke, explosions, ship guns and cities in IL-2, not the cockpit alone. But anyways, there are 2 installs so I can use both stock and modded game. Win-win :) Easiest upgrade for IL-2 player is to get a nVidia card as IL-2 is optimized for it. the difference to ATI can be quite big on certain scenarios. Friends of mine run on "lesser" nV series like 8800GT or Ultra and still get close to the AMD offerings even today with far less price. So no need to cycle every 6mth, just use NV for IL-2 and you can not go wrong ;)

Exactly the same for me.Without mods,I would have given up on il2 long ago.With the mods,its (almost) like a new sim.
The early days of the mods was messy,but now with UP and jsgme its easy.

i didnt use MODs for a very long time, my 99,9% online flying (and i fly only online) is COOP in the VOW. VOW is 4.09 default (unfortutnalty 4.10 wasnt released before the actual run of it :( ).

VOW is dieing unfortunatly.....for whatever reason (missions are biased, bad planeset, bad missions - the typical online war complain stuff i guess , and sure, the MODs)
and COOP online wars a rare nowadays :(
so, to fly the dogfightservers (man, i am so fast boored to hell on these.......) most populated in the HL, you are forced to have a MOD.

and its true, nowadays they are easy to use , huge download ;) , but easy to install and use.
but for me personaly they bring nothing realy new. They are just needed to be able to join.
anyway, there are here and will stay . Thats ok.
and the most servers will stay 4.09 till "their" MODs are able to run at 4.10 IMHO !

Unfortunately I agree.Not many servers will run 4.10 until a new UP or HSFX modpack is released.

At least dedicated servers will be able to run official MDS v4.10 hopefully pulling in the v4.09m fliers.
Problem is vanilla fliers wont really know what MDS is about, it can be a steep learning curve.

Maps were the only reason I use a non standard version of IL2, as the game was getting boring with limited theatres the maps bought new life to IL2 1946.

If you're talking about offline gameplay then yes, by all means. Mods are perfect for offline game. In online game play there is no place for them.

When you look at it, it is sad what mods did to IL2 regarding online play. Those who still play keep to themselves with their own mod packs and to their own squadrons. Times where you could join any server and just pick up a plane and fly are long gone.

That is the reason why IL2 is still alive, if it would have remained in original state there wouldnt hardly be anyone online compared to what we now have. I have multiple IL2 installs on my harddrive, including one UP 2.01 another patched 4.09m ( ready for 4.10) and one Il2 where I experiment, I fly the 2.01 99% of the time, simply because it's awesome both online and offline for my campaigns, and 1% in the experimental IL2 one.

Divided community is for the best, it has been so for too long anyways to re-unite somehow.

These are my feelings on this subject aswell.

I have to disagree, especially with the last part. As you can see we did get 4.09 and 4.10 should come out eventually. Although slow, but updates do exist. We can debate what would have happened if it had happened - the bottom line is: only people who benefited from the 'prolonged' life are people who play offline. For us onliners, the game didn't need no 'prolonging'. We had it fine just the way it was.

Once you taste online teamwork with humans vs. human opponents, not to mention online campaigns - offline gameplay soon becomes ridiculous and not worth mentioning (as far as IL2 goes). ;)