New to IL2 on PS3: looking for tips

[Rhino_WJB]

Hi,

I am a new player to IL2 on PS3, and cannot explain why I only just bought IL2!

As my previous experience is with PC sims (I was a member of the Free-Birds Wing for a while and spent most of my time in Falcon 4.0), I was hoping for a few tips to help me keep IL2 as realistic as possible. With the premise that I fly in Simulation mode, here are my questions:

1. How do you manage to keep eyes on target without padlock and the mega sensitive free-look camera? I have free-look on my right stick, but can never keep it steady enough to first pick then track a target. I find it easier to keep swicthing to Tactical Map to find the general position of the enemy, which is just not realistic.

2. Is there any easy way to pick out enemy planes and not go chasing after a friendly by mistake? Common threads for identification would help.

3. I am using a DS2 pad with custom keymap and Sony bluetooth pad-keyboard with a few keys mapped to that (IL2 supporting keyboards on PS3 just rocks!), Sometimes, after a mission where there is a Secondary option or when prompted to press "X" say, the game does not accept the input. Is this a common bug?

4. What is the best way to stop your plane following a landing? Does reducing the throttle to 0 activate the brake? There is no wheel-brake key so far as I know. Is it a case of just hold Reduce Throttle, or release then press again? I'm confused about this.

I would enjoy a free-roam, but this doesn't look like an option (unless you set the training parameters to fudge it).

I'm sure there will be plenty of other questions, but for now my main problem is free-look cockpit camera: just seems to hard to control :-/

Any advice on these points would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

"Rhino"

Hello! Nice to have you aboard. I have never flown sim on PC. My experience is with this game only. From what I have gathered, this game is somewhat less complicated, so to speak, than a PC. So I hope you don't get disillusioned by its faults. I wiil help as much as I can.

I use the Thrustmaster Hotas stick. It has a limited hat switch on the throttle for lookaround. Up, left, right, down. The game also supports a mouse in the 2nd port for look around and bomber gunner view. It has no limits on its range as the Hotas does. I find it impossible to find and track my target and keep my plane going where I want it to at the same time. I can't stare at my enemy and stay upright too. I don't know any of my friends that can. I use the pop up map often as we all do, realistic or not, it is your only option to locate the general vicinity of your foes. I will look left and right or up for location after getting close using the map, then turn my plane towards the enemy and look out the top of my canopy as I turn. I "sweep" the sky in an arc of about 110 degrees or so as I turn. I can control my plane in this way while searching. Once I have located my foe I will "pop" the look around in and out of his direction as I manuever into position. If I lose him, I immediately use the pop up map to track him and continuosly manuever by instinct (knowing his direction, attitude, speed, etc the last time I saw him). Once you get the enemy in front of you in site you are halfway there. Or just give up and start hunting all over again. Pilots have different methods of lookaround so I'm sure you will get other inputs, but this is my method and it works for me. Above all, practise makes perfect. You will figure it out in time.

As far as stopping, I pull all the back on the stick and stop. I believe that is the brake.

Pick out enemies by looking for the blue bands on the wings and fusalage (good guys) or red bands (bad guys). You may have a problem here because unless you are using the Sony controller or a TM stick, the zoom function does not work on custom setup (in sim mode only). An oversight on the part of the developers. Without zoom, you have to close up on your target. A pity for sure, but that's the way it is unfortunately.

I've never had a problem accepting secondary targets.

Hope to see you in the air! Just keep playing and you will get it real quick!!!!

[The M00ps]

Plane identification is definitely one of the trickiest things about simulation mode. You didn't mention whether you were playing campaign or multiplayer, but Lost's hint about the blue/red bands for identification only applies to team battles in multiplayer.

I've just begun trying to complete all of the single missions on sim, and I've noticed a few things. Let me start by saying that I'm on Xbox, not PS3, so I don't know if this applies to you as well. But I've found that at a distance, when the planes are nothing more than just dots, the enemy planes appear to be a slightly lighter color than the friendlies. So if you have sight of more than one at a time, and one is lighter than the rest, that's your bandit.

If it's Spits vs. 109s, once you get a little closer, the distinctive wing shape of the Spitfire can be used. It's got that rounded elliptical wing, whereas the 109 has squared off wingtips.

Once you get your crosshairs on a plane and are approaching firing range, if he doesn't try to elude you, it's probably a friendly. If still in doubt, squeeze of a couple of rounds and he'll let you know if he is.

As for keeping someone in view with the freelook, good luck with that.

[Rhino_WJB]

Thank you for your suggestions.

This camera is becoming an issue. The problem is that it self-centres, along with the stick. By doing so, the camera forces the player to hold a position on the analouge stick, which is near impossible, and the camera just swings wildly. This is why padlock is so important: we are looking at a 2D image with limited field of view, but no doubt the devs removed padlock from Simulation to keep it as real as possible. I understand the logic, but moving your head around and tracking an object in a real cockpit it a lot easier than in this game!

If I swicth to padlock in Realistic the target is much much easier to kill, but I do not want to sacrifice all the other great things about Simulation (plane control, no text on the screen etc.).

How do the Aces in Simulation track a target (from cockpit)? Master the free-look camera?

Another issue I cannot seem to over-come is the bombing system. When flying at altitude, how do you know where your bombs will hit in Simulation? In Realistic it's easy, but there is no bomb-sight in Simulation from what I can see.

It's obvious the devs spent little time actually playing in Simulation when designing it.........

[trk29]

Originally Posted by Rhino_WJB

Thank you for your suggestions.

This camera is becoming an issue. The problem is that it self-centres, along with the stick. By doing so, the camera forces the player to hold a position on the analouge stick, which is near impossible, and the camera just swings wildly. This is why padlock is so important: we are looking at a 2D image with limited field of view, but no doubt the devs removed padlock from Simulation to keep it as real as possible. I understand the logic, but moving your head around and tracking an object in a real cockpit it a lot easier than in this game!

If I swicth to padlock in Realistic the target is much much easier to kill, but I do not want to sacrifice all the other great things about Simulation (plane control, no text on the screen etc.).

How do the Aces in Simulation track a target (from cockpit)? Master the free-look camera?

Another issue I cannot seem to over-come is the bombing system. When flying at altitude, how do you know where your bombs will hit in Simulation? In Realistic it's easy, but there is no bomb-sight in Simulation from what I can see.

It's obvious the devs spent little time actually playing in Simulation when designing it.........

Hi and welcome to the forum. The bombing is tricky but without the bomb sight it makes it harder but bombing at low alltitude makes is easier. There are several different setups now since the update that making free look better I use L1 and right stick to free look with a pad.

And simulation almost got scrubbed but the dev team put it in there because we wanted it and thought it would enhance the gameplay. In realistic you can also turn your hud off so all the text is not on the screen. There is a limited and and off setting.

[Rhino_WJB]

Thank you for the welcome.

As I play more, the more I'm switched off. What a shame!

There are too many bugs. Custom control maps seem to upset the engine some-what. Do you need to be on controller channel 1 for it to work properly?

My initial optimism for this title is waining already :-/ I played a single mission just now on Sim and managed to complete it without firing a shot! What?! I was busy trying to get the camera down and keeping the bird in the air, then got "Mission Successful". Mmmm.

Is the Sim engine trying to tell me that at 100% throttle, the planes in the game are unable to perform a half loop? Are you serious? If I pull on the stick, the plane gets half way through the loop then falls to one side in a stall. With high air speed and 100% throttle? I doubt it.

I will not play in Realistic to over-come short falls in the design. Realistic? I've never seen the word "STALL" magically appear before a pilot. Keep it for the Arcade modes!

It gets me frustated when small things that could easily be put right are missed by software developers. IL2 has great potential, but looks like it's lacking support. Am I right to say 360 owners are still waiting a patch? It's like OF2R, only in reverse ;-D