My wonder list
 

Yes, wonder since I ask myself following things since I started playing IL-2 a few time ago and also because I fear they are impossible to make.

1. To make an aerodrome requires two things: an airfield and a windsock; taking-off and landing without it would be suicidal, especially with strong cross winds often active in game. It should be doable since present e.g. in Joint Strike Fighter combat sim (Eidos - 1997).
2. WWII era runways were often "airfields" allowing taking-off almost in any direction, according to wind. If not feasible, at least runway should be along prevalent direction of local wind: why in IL-2 wind is always across runway?
3. A realistic runway should be at least twice wide the current one in IL-2 and free from obstacle in the vicinity: why control tower (and a lot of vehicles, trees and any kind of obstacles) are always alongside?
4. Aircrafts should take-off at quinconce: since set in line astern, how player can SEE to be cleared for take-off?
5. Why was decided to distress player with loss of padlocked view shortly after it is "masked" also by a tiny cockpit frame? In RL pilot should move his head or repeat search until retaking visual contact. Since this can't be performed by a PC monitor, the right thing was to keep still padlock view.
6. Why forcing player to fill sky with icons, so disrupting immersion? Since visual identification by a 500 dpi eye can't be modeled on a 96 dpi screen, would be effective to set "selective" keys to point at different target - e.g. "F" for friend, "M" for mate of same flight, "E" for enemy and so on, like in Red Baron 3D (Dynamix - 1998 ).
7. Why not implementing internal views with some "panning" along the four directions (up, down, left, and right) WHILE PADLOCKED on friend or enemy (or ground object): this would help reading instruments, e.g., that currently can't be done hitting 5 on NumPad without adjusting also FOV.
8. Why player isn't provided with a serious flight plan? How can I lead a flight if I don't know altitude of each waypoint?
9. Why ground control assistance is so poor? Germans, for instance, did have radars in a net informing pilots about enemy flights (this was present in European Air War - Microprose, 1998 )
10. Also ground object padlocking should be fixed, so not forcing player to keep it in external view to keep track of runway during approach.
11. Control tower should give a safer assistance to landing operation and not allow another plane to land just after having authorized player to do.

Pardon me if I seem not grateful for 1C and Daidalos work, that's not so.

Best regards,
GB

6. You can do that now by using custom icons.

7. Try the 'Instant View Forward With Padlock' command. It does what you want except you can't pan while looking forward. However, you should be able to see most of your instruments.

10. So you are asking for a 'Padlock Runway' command. That would be nice. What I do now is padlock a friendly unit near the runway. This basically has the same affect and keeps the runway in your padlocked view.

Aviar

Since 4.10 the wind direction is directly specified by the mission builder including speed, direction, gust level and turbulence.

Runways on older maps tend to be fairly generic while on newer maps they tend to be specific to the real airfield. Some WWII airfields were very small grass fields while others were large and expansive. We see a mix of both. If you check out the airfields on the Slovakia, Bessarabia, Solomons, Burma, and Kurland maps (just to name a few) you will see very historical airfields.

If you don't like icons...they can be turned off.

Thanks for replies.

About custom icons, I know they could be turned off and anyway "customized". What I meant was totally different: since actually average player CANNOT perform visual identification like in RL, because in RL he use an eyeball having a 500 dpi resolution, in game resolution is bottle-necked by 96 dpi screen - five times less!

As a consequence, older games like Red Baron 3D gave to different letters on keyboard, different effect in searching and padlocking in sky various aircrafts: "E" for enemy, "F" for friend and much more. This allowed to get rid of icons, because when e.g. player hit "T" key, nearest threat is found and padlocked. THIS IS NOT unrealistic, because, given limitation mentioned above, that replicates what in RL pilot would do - this is called cybernetics (study of human behaviour applied to machines) a science vastly forgot lately. Unfortunately, more often, instead of cybernetics, we apply personal opinion (always arguable), so e.g. we think: "keeping visual track, into cockpit, thru' canopy frames is impossible, SO we make padlock view lost when this happen". Actual pilot behaviour, instead, is move is head so to keep still track of his target and, if visual track is lost, he restart search until he track again! This, in front of (again) a 96 dpi screen can be performed only by selective key, if we do not want read banners in the sky attached to various aircraft, that is HIGHLY unreal.

This also mean that padlock view should NEVER be lost if not intentionally by player. This for runway too, since currently padlocked view on a ground object is lost as well as soon as a visual obstruction gets in the mid.

Sorry for my poor english and lenght of message, I'm only trying to make myself understood; maybe something better for this sim gets through.

Cheers,
GB

I understand exactly what you are saying. However, IL-2 still has some of what you are looking for. As I mentioned earlier, you can use custom icons so that you really couldn't see them at all. As far as this part you mentioned...."different effect in searching and padlocking in sky various aircrafts: "E" for enemy, "F" for friend and much more."....IL-2 already has the following Padlock commands:

Padlock Enemy
Padlock Friendly
Padlock Enemy Ground
Padlock Friendly Ground
Padlock Next
Padlock Previous

All of the above are INTERNAL (in-cockpit) commands. They seem to do exactly as you have described above.

I do understand that you would like your virtual pilot's viewing system to be more human-like. I agree. That would be great. (Be aware that there is a large percentage of IL-2 players who are totally against Padlock and disable this feature altogether from their server(s).)

Personally, I use Padlock. Could it be improved? Just about anything in IL-2 could be improved. However, I have been playing flight sims for many years and in my opinion, the Padlock implementation in IL-2 is the best I have ever seen. (Yes, I also played Red Baron 3D.)

Aviar

Hi Aviar,

you're forgetting an important difference about padlocking in respect of RB3D: when you hit, for instance, "M" key, RB3D performs search for you and then padlocks! To padlock on a flight mate in IL-2 you must have it in front sight, first, not to mention that IL-2 does not distinguish between "mate" and generic "friendly". So if you want padlock a mate, you must first perform his visual identification, which is impossible if he'sn't very close, that's to say you need (again) icons!:(

I'm always for maximum available customization, let no-padlock fans free to play the way they like. This does not force to have icons, if more effective devices are implemented.

I respect your opinion, although would be curious to know what's worse in RB3D system.

Cheers,
GB

Did it have an 'S' key you could press and then it shot it down? :)
Agree about difficulties with identification, but then I don't use icons...

I understand exactly what you are requesting. Basically you want what we already have now (External Padlock Friend/Enemy), but you want it to be implemented INTERNALLY (in-cockpit). That is exactly what you are wishing for.

In other words, the padlock command will do all the work for the player. They don't even have to look around. That's fine. We can all wish for anything we like.

Just remember, we have exactly what you are reqesting right now. The only difference is that NOW you simply need to have the plane to be padlocked in your cockpit view.

Personally I wouldn't use the padlock you are requesting because it's a Wonder Woman' padlock. It would padlock a plane that your virtual pilot could not even see (behind, under or hidden by your plane's fuselage or wings.)

Like I said earlier, that's just an External Padlock implemented within the cockpit.

Aviar

Correct! You understood perfectly.

And HOW, in your opinion, player should look around? Please start from a basic hardware, don't give for sure all have Track-IR. One should be able to play even with KB only - otherwise on IL-2 box must be written: required mandatory Track-IR to play this game! And even if player does have Track-IR, HOW he should identify a blob in the sky as, e.g., his mate No.5 at 500 m of distance; this would be in RL, but please remember the 1/5 ratio in resolution between eye and screen. Not to mention that game is sold to be played also with 640x480 resolution which worsen things furtherly...


I agree. That's the inconvenience, but, again, you should have the choice to have or not. TD is working on 4.11 to customize external views (enemy and friends, only friends, none), why not customize also internal padlock?

Cheers,
GB

If we're talking Padlock, I wish that they would re-implement the ability to padlock ships. It was in the original IL-2 and then for some reason removed very early on.

Aviar