In my opinion the main thing to keep in mind is how to make the sim accurate and not be "vindictive", for lack of a better word, to players of the other team. The balance swings one way or the other with each patch as things get fixed. Ideally, everything would be fixed at once but usually ideal things don't happen in reality. So, we get one fix that favors one side in this patch, another fix that favors the other side in the next one and so on. It's no use getting irritated over it
I'm satisfied with the solution because i wanted both 87 and 100 oct variants in the sim. Having only one or the other was too restrictive for my taste in terms of possible dynamic scenarios eg, in a dynamic campaign a successful bombing effort could deplete fuel supplies and force the RAF to fly the inferior 87 oct versions, but only if they actually exist as flyable models in the sim.
Coupled with the radiator drag adjustments it will make things interesting and at the end of the day that's what i'm after: interesting gameplay within historical performance values.
If the rest of the performance issues are corrected too, we get the best of both worlds. It's through a strange run of luck really, but BoB is one of the few points during WWII where having historical accuracy can also create good gameplay balance without resorting to artificial and unrealistic gimmicks to level the playing field.
The LW had the faster planes but they were harder to manage and fly (manual pitch propellers and less maneuverable), while the RAF had easier to fly aircraft that were a bit slower. This creates a very balanced playing field while using different styles of fighter design.
I think that much of the outcry about Spit IIs was not the FM itself but the relative performance of it compared to everything else. It was probably the fighter that was closest to real world performance, but everything else was so undermodeled that it outclassed everything by too wide a margin, it was almost a win button in moderately capable hands.
I expect that with the new toned down Hurricanes, Spit Is up to spec, Spit IIs as they are more or less, corrected 109 speeds, the inclusion of M-shells and a DB601N variant for the 110s, as well as a second look on CEM for all fighters, everything will fall into place quite nicely and we will have interesting choices to make.
A blue pilot could fly a DB601N equipped 110 and probably be the fastest of all fighters with awesome firepower, but god forbid if he lets down his guard and gets bounced or decides to mix it up a bit: the poor maneuverability and low acceleration will make it very difficult to get back up to high speed and escape.
In a similar fashion, 109s will be vulnerable to being bounced even by Hurricanes depending on situational factors. For example, if the 109 is throttled a bit back to cool the engine down and a Hurricane with a cool engine dives on it and engages overboost.
Or in reverse, a flight of Spitfires might have strained their engines during a high-angle overboosted climb to the bombers, so that when getting bounced by escorts they can't keep pushing the engines further because their engines are already hot.
Performance was very closely matched and victory depended a lot on tactics, individual skill and pure luck/situational factors in each mission. If the sim is properly tweaked, i expect that engine conditions and temperatures at the start of an engagement will carry as much, if not more, weight for the overall outcome of it as the initial energy states of combatants. And i really can't wait until we get there, because for way too long we've been judging everything based on top performance only, without realizing that it cannot be maintained indefinitely in the real world
