Quote:
Originally Posted by Haklangr
If you ever have the time I would very much enjoy a quick walk-through of one of your videos
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I know there are a lot of videos to go through there, but in many of them you can expand the text I wrote for them and in some cases read a commentary in the hundreds of words. If you run across one that you particularly like and want more information than I have given then let me know and I am sure I can go more deeply into it.
A lot of the videos I threw up were just because I thought they were showing a bit of IL2 history. Some of the tracks are from 2003 when IL2 first got the capability to record online tracks. The early videos show what was hip back then ten years ago, and as the videos march through the last ten years you can see a lot of the advances and changes in the sim and in myself.
I always concentrated on flying harder settings from the start, and also always flew mostly the Bf109 and FW190, trying to stick with them while most others switched allegiance as each patch produced one or another aircraft that were "ace makers". That said I also believe in balancing the sides in online servers and if RED was badly outnumbered I do not hesitate to jump into an allied aircraft, which can certainly help you become well-rounded and more knowledgeable.
It is important to get to know your favorite aircraft intimately, but it is very helpful to know what your opponents aircraft and armament can and can not do.
One of my favorite things to do is to find out how the aircraft I am flying is different than my opponents and using it's strengths against the other aircraft's weaknesses.
I remember the days of keeping the throttle on full during a fight, not only hampering maneuverability but also ruining the engine by the end of the fight. I know those currently that have poor throttle management and find themselves blacking out and not being able to turn with others. The throttle is as important a control as the stick and rudder pedals.
The radiator settings are going to change with each aircraft, and you may change the radiator and prop pitch settings more than once on each sortie switching back and forth between maximum performance and maximum economy. In the 109 while I am looking for trouble but not fighting I will often switch the prop pitch to 35% and back down on the throttle so the fuel will go much further, that lets me fight with a lighter aircraft and keeps me in the air longer or helps me get home. Any aircraft in IL2 can be manipulated in various ways to give it more speed or economy or engine longevity.
When I was too serious about flying IL2 and cared much more about dominating various servers, I would test the speed and acceleration of every aircraft I would be flying in or against, many dozens of them and write all that information down and memorize it so that I knew what my aircraft could do against any other.
IL2 is a fun hobby you can spend a lot of time on. Hopefully it is not your whole life though and you can find a nice spouse, get some exercise outdoors regularly in the sunshine and have some kids and other hobbies that let you get some exercise. I feel bad if I let IL2 keep me inside when the sun is shining or take up too much of my time these days. Life is short and IL2 is a very nice thing and very interesting but I see that I could have fixed up a lot more vintage motorcycles and had a lot more fun with other things in the real world with the time I spent on it.....