CoD--Becoming a Masterpiece

[nodlew]

My first post concerning this game was a rant about performance, but with the last two patches, the game is playable for me now, even on a modest PC--

Vista™ Ultimate
E4600 @ 2.40GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 3326MB RAM
NVidia 9800 GT

If I replace my MOBO, OC or upgrade my CPU, and upgrade my GPU I could go to higher graphics settings, but at the moment the terrain looks good enough as long as I can pull lead on a bomber skimming the tree-tops without stutters and game-breakingly bad FPS.

So now I'm ready to start praising this sim, which I have been wanting to do all along. And I invite anyone else so inclined to add their own like-minded input.

One of the things that maddening about Il-2 was the extreme difficulty spotting, tracking, and identifying bogies/ufo's. I do not have track IR, and the way things are going, I probably never will. Trying to keep a target in sight in Il-2 using the snap and pan views of my joystick hat was murder. Ultimately, not workable. So I tried using the mouse, training my left hand (also tried my foot...) to work the mouse to look around while I flew with my right hand on the stick. This was better. I finally had to replace my joystick and I got an X-45 Hotas system allowing me to use one hat-switch in mouse emulation mode to look around, and with practice this was even better. But the insurmountable problem was that the graphics in Il-2, although great for the time the game was created, of course, were just not good enough to make objects distinguishable at any distance. And when everyone is in a plane, going over 200 mph, distances can get very large very quickly. I spent (at least) half my time trying to find something--anything!--else in the air. Once I found it (often by a guilty resort to the map) I would have to chase right up on top of it before I could tell whether it was a 109 or a P-47. I ruined my eyesight and risked a brain aneurism playing Il-2. The color was such that a bomber 200 ft below could be completely invisible against the water, or the terrain. At any larger distance, you were searching for tiny black specks moving slightly against a dark background. It was hell. If it wasn't such a wonderful game, it would make an excellent instrument of physical and psychological torture.

This game us MUCH BETTER. (!) Having spotted a plane, I can usually keep it in sight. I only lose sight of my target in conditions of poor visibility (haze, darkness, clouds) or because it does something unexpected, and I can tell what it is from much, much farther away. The effect on the playability of the sim cannot be over stated. I can see the yellow nose of a 109 from quite far away, likewise the wing configurations of various aircraft. Since playing this sim for some hundreds of hours now, I have fired on a friendly aircraft maybe four times, and those were when I was still very new to the sim.

The ability to realistically tailor ammunition load-outs and to set convergence specifically for each gun in both the hor and ver planes is a fantastic feature. As far as I know, it is a first in any military flight sim. One of many, many firsts, I'm sure. There has never been a flight sim like this one, and it is as yet in its infancy.

The realism of the gunsight mechanisms is stunning.

Pulling lead on enemy planes is SO MUCH EASIER than it was in Il-2, or in any other WWII flight sim I've ever played. Pulling lead was next to impossible in the older games, it was a black art. You really had to learn to shoot with the enemy hidden under the nose of your plane--it was ridiculous. I knew that it wasn't right. Aerial gunnery is a skill, difficult to master, it is not a feat worthy of a Zen Master, not a magic trick. Somehow, with the better sights and the realistic ballistics and the better flight behaviors, it is now possible to use the reflector gunsight on a fighter in this game to compute lead and shoot at a moving target. Hooray for the human race.

I am no expert about flight models. I have never flown an airplane, although I have flown in some airplanes, the experience being much like being on a bus, except at 20,000 ft. But, for me, the planes are much easier to fly than the planes in Il-2. I almost never stall except when I am at the top of an 80deg zoom-climb chasing an enemy fighter. I have stalled and spun a couple of times--spins are difficult to recover from, maybe I should try the training mission. The AI advantage in aircraft performance is not a shadow of what it was in Il-2. I don't feel the AI has any unfair advantage at all, honestly. Most of the time, I pity them in their futile attempts to escape (until the 20mm golf-balls start racing by my cockpit). My instinct, is that the flight models are more realistic. Some planes in Il-2 were ridiculously difficult to fly (Mustang, anyone?)

For those who point to the crazy rolls of the BF-110, yeah, I think sustained maneuvers like that would be physically impossible, both for the aircraft, and in terms of the pilot's endurance. Like I said, I don't know anything about the real-world capacities of WWII planes, or comparatively nothing. Still, by employing the rudders, on those planes, flying at comparatively low speeds, I can see how they could be made to flip on a dime. Try kicking the rudder in your hurricane full left or right during a roll and you will see the difference.

As for damage models, to me, they seem very realistic. I was surprised the first time I emptied my guns into a bomber and watched it fly merrilly away in a cloud of debris. The last patch improved on that, and the bombers now seem just about right to me. With an accuracy that varies from 10 to 30 percent hits, I usually can shoot down a couple of bombers per mission. My best so far is four Dorniers in the first mission, realistic ammo, of course. And now that I've figured out how to save gun convergence and custom ammo load-outs, my kill ratio should go up.

I think the patches have improved the aggressiveness of the AI as well. I had just begun one mission and suddenly, unaccountably, my screen went black. I thought the game had crashed, but no, I was dead. I checked the track and was surprised to see that a 109 came up at me head-on from below my nose and blew me away with his 20mm cannon. Must have been one of the veterans. I have trouble now with enemy on my tail. They can be hard to shake, following me through tight circles and multiple loops. They are also hard to see. The danger has increased a lot and I like it.

I like the AI in the game generally. I like the fact that bombers attempt to stay in formation--just as they did historically, knowing that to be isolated was to be as good as dead. I like the fact that bombers take smaller, but clever evasive maneuvers, like varying altitude to throw off a pursuer's aim, but not taking off and making like the Red Baron a-la IL-2. And if they get desperate, they will break off and act more desperately. Ace level bombers are not easy pickings. Their gunners are Il-2-like in their accuracy. Fly straight at them from behind and they will shoot your eyes out. They are very dangerous.

The possibilities inherent in the ground war dimension of the game, given the detail of the ground vehicles, are...vast. Well worth upgrading my present piece of junk to a respectable machine.

This post is long already. Anyway, in conclusion...

I was mad because the game was buggy (is still buggy) upon release, but mostly mad because I couldn't find a way to make it playable.

The patches have been released with unexpected urgency and they have effectively addressed the worst of the problems, and beyond the problems, this game is shaping up to be absolutely magnificent.

[garengarch]

Very nicely put - and agreed !

nodlew can I ask what country you're from? I just purchased TrackIr 4 with Vector and I still have my TrackIr 3. It still works like a champion. Its all yours mate if you want it.

[TwistedAdonis]

Originally Posted by 602Sqn.McLean

nodlew can I ask what country you're from? I just purchased TrackIr 4 with Vector and I still have my TrackIr 3. It still works like a champion. Its all yours mate if you want it.

*wipes away a tear*...that's beautiful man...*sniff*

[nodlew]

602Sqn.McLean

Are you serious? Damn. Didn't expect that. I'm in the USA--Central,VA. Gee whiz. I would come up with the postal charges, I mean if they weren't really high. Anyway, just the offer really is beautiful. Generosity is a beautiful thing.

I'm serious mate. It's only going to sit there anyway. I'm in Canberra, Australia. I don't reckon it'll be very expensive to send. Is there some way to send me your postal address privately so the world doesn't see it. I'll check out how much it will cost to send from here.
**Just worked it out nodlew. I've sent you a private message via this forum**

[nodlew]

602Sqn.McLean,

I'll see if I can figure out how to send you a PM with my email address. Really, thanks man. I'm kinda unemployed, not ashamed to say it--health problems. So money is kinda tight. I can manage big things--like the new $50 mother board--through force of will, but track ir, I kinda gave up on that. I'm psyched to try it. Gonna try to PM you, never done it on this board before, but shouldn't ultimately be beyond my capacities...

[AARPRazorbacks]

Yes, CoD is looking very good.

I live in the USA and must be one of the very few from the States to have this sim.

I'm going throw the growing pains with CoD.

Is it worth this.

Very much so.

That is if you like WWII flight sims.


Dev's just keep spooning CoD and it will keep getting better.

flyer01

[Strike]

I am amazed at the damage model in this Sim.

It seems that it's really realistic now. You can hit a spit, and the bullet might - depending on angle and location - actually just puncture the aluminum panels and shoot out the other side, leaving a bullet exit hole.
Next bullet might actually go straight through the wing spar and tear the wing clean off or perforate a pneumatic hose and disable one of the flaps. Or even destroy the mechanical linkage and let the flap fall down unintentionally. I've also witnessed flaps with perforated pneumatic hoses "flap" violently back and forth in the windstream.. Looks very very good!


In this particular image however I hit the spit from 6 o'clock with a strafe of 20mm shells in the wing, completely removed the L/H aileron, destroyed the water cooler, shredded the tire with shrapnel and took out a few machine guns. The spit rolled over and plummeted into the ocean within 20 seconds. I often find myself pausing the game just so that I can review the damage of my opponent. The awesome part is you can switch to this particular plane and experience the results of your own carnage at the receiving end! Pretty awesome if you ask me, and an excellent tool for movie makers!

Gotta say this sim is growing on me nicely!

[mazex]

Damn it's good that this forum has now mostly gotten rid of the whiners that say they will never buy unfinished products etc, and instead people are starting to see the gem that we have in front of us that the poor devs where forced to release just a few months to early by the publishers! I agree with almost everything you write and it now runs really great on my 4 year old system too.

Like someone wrote in another thread. Try starting IL2 now and prepare to be amazed with how crappy and outdated it feels!