[Antoninus]

I am curious what level of realism the people here, the hardcore Il-2 fans, consider desirable. Generally with each new generation of flight sims the complexity increased, each was closer to flying a real plane.

Currently in Il-2, the players workload is considerably lower than it would be in real WW2 aircraft. A lot of things like a realistic turbocharger simulation, the effects of carburetor air temperature and oil temperature, damage due to shock cooling, damaged cowl flaps due to overspeed, realistic start up procedures, realistic navigation, fuel(-tank) management, etc. are left out.

Personally as a simmer, I would love to see all this aspects in a sim. But obviously more realism doesn't automatically equal more fun, at least for most (?). On the contrary if people have to spend days or weeks to learn how to operate specific aircraft many will become quickly frustrated or bored and might move on to something else. Thus economically further increasing realism is probably not very wise. While the necessary development time, and so the costs, are increased the potential customer only base becomes smaller. As developer I would spend my resources to improve the atmosphere and gameplay instead. Better campaigns, briefings, maybe some period newsreels etc. Trying to please a wider audience than just the hardcore WW2 aviation buffs.