Just bought Sturmovik. Need some help from veterans.

[The Stalker]

Hi. I bought Sturmovik 1946 two days ago. I've been looking for a WWII flying game and I was told this was "the one". Not to mention my surprise when I discovered how detailed and realistic the game was. However, that fact did not scare me, and I decided to take the patient route and learn to fly lesson by lesson.

The thing is, I have no idea how to get started. I've read the entire manual but it fails to go into detail about all the plane controls. So here are the things I want to know:

1) Anything you can recommend to help me learn how to fly. Any more reading materiel out there? Better training missions to download? I was hoping the game would provide segmented tutorial, like learn how to take off, land, plane components, forces, but all it has are videos. Although they explain things well, I would like to get the feeling for myself. Can I practice landing in the editor?

2) What does enriching the fuel mix effect?

3) What does softening the fuel mix effect?

4) What's a radiator? What does it effect?

5) What are plane elevators?

6) Propeller Pitch? What does that do?

7) What campaign would you recommend I start first after I finish my training?

8.) Oh man, superchargers? Sounds abstract.

Things to consider if you decide to answer my questions (nice you )

I KNOW: Basic physics, pretty much what's torque, g-force, lift..... I know I need to be patient and practice a lot.
I DON'T KNOW: Much about WWII planes but I'm here to learn. I'm no pilot so I don't know much about flying (except some basics including basic maneuvers) either but I want to learn.

Thanks, sorry for the length and sorry if I violated any posting rules. And sorry I'm such a noob .
Regards

[baronWastelan]

I learned all the aircraft and powerplant details as part of my training in the Civil Air Patrol (USAF Auxiliary). That was 1977 - 1979. At that time the minimum age was 12 (I was 12 then).

[The Stalker]

You see, I neither live in America, nor I have the time, or money, to take piloting lessons just for the sake of a game. Simulators are supposed to teach you anyway. I was hoping someone would have some time just to answer these and I'll be alright.

[nearmiss]

The Stalker

I suggest you google on the things you have questions about. Add an IL2 on to the search and it will pull information with IL2.

The http://'mission4today.com site has a ton of information and even some manuals on Complex engine management.

Also, go to ubisoft

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/cfrm/f/25910613

If you hang on these 2 sites and forums you will learn as far back as the origination of IL2. The Ubisoft boards have years of searchable information. There are over a million postings made on the Ubisoft IL2 boards.

You might get some answers here, but mostly this is the IL2 boards occupied by users that have been around awhile. Questions are still answered for the most part by sites like the two above.

[koivis]

Hi, and welcome!

There are a few threads in some forums to get started with the game, I'd recommend this one:

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/t...3/m/9121094645
and also this
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/t...3/m/4551011977

these pretty much contain everything you need for starters!

To answer your questions shortly:

1) Check the first link

2) As far as I know, in game it doesn't do anything at all, no apparent power increase.

3) Again, not 100% sure but this seems to lower fuel consumption, and also gives less power on really low settings (0 to 40). You also need to lower the mix on some planes as you go higher. This is because the carburettor "chokes" from too rich mixture, as there is less air up high.

4) Radiator or cowl flaps are used to cool the engine so that it doesn't overheat. In radial engines, the flaps opening on the cowling let air pass around the cylinders freely, and thus to cool them. In liquid-cooled engines, it opens flaps on the back of the radiator, and this cools the liquid used to cool the engine.

If you get the overheat message after a while by using high power setting, you can open the radiator (and reduce power) to cool it back to normal.

5) Elevators are usually the control devices on horizontal stabilisers, used to control the pitch (up/down movement) of the aircraft.
Respectively, there are ailerons on wings near the tips, controlling roll (movement around longitudal axis), and rudder for yaw control.

6) 100% propeller pitch means that the propeller blades are set at such angle at which they grab the least amount of air and thus produce less thrust. However, for most planes this allows the engine to run near it's optimal rpm range, and usually it is the fastest setting. By lowering the pitch the thrust per rpm increases, and this is recommended for cruise flight.

Some planes have constant speed propeller(CSP), which, as you control the blade pitch, keeps the engine running at constant speed. Some have just a normal manual pitch, some are fully automatic, and some older ones have only two settings or a simple, fixed, unadjustable propeller.

A common misconception is that the pitch setting changes the drive ratio between engine and prop. This is not true, and such mechanism would be nearly impossible to build.

7) I haven't played any of the offline campaings for a while now, but I'm sure someone else has the answer already...

8 ) Superchargers... not that abstract at all, pretty simple in fact. It is a device used to feed more air into engine cylinders by supercharging, forced induction or most commonly, boosting. The pressure increase is usually called boost level.

It comes in different varieties, the simplest one is a single compressor (in aircraft usually centrifugal) geared from the engine crankshaft, and as the air flows through it, it's pressure is increased.

Many WWII aircraft had two speed superchargers. This means that there were two different gearings to it, low gear used on low altitude (preventing overboost), and high gear on high altitude (giving more power as the boost pressure starts to drop on low gear at certain altitude).

In addition to two (or even three) speeds, there were two stage superchargers. From this you don't have to worry at all, it's basicly two centrifugal compressor behind each other, each running at their optimal speed. Result = more boost, more power (especially in higher altitudes).

Another common misconception is that, if in game, a plane doesn't have an adjustable supercharger, it doesn't have supercharger at all. Of course, this is not true either, nearly all combat aircraft flown in WWII had some kind of supercharger. In such case, the supercharger is either single-speed, multi-speed but automatic, or even an automatic turbocharger+supercharger configuration.

If you are confused about some of the terms (in italic font), wikipedia and google provide lots of detailed information to make you even more confused.

Hope all this helps!

Edit: 3 posts were posted in the time I wrote this, but anyway...

[Les]

**Just a note, this was written before some of the other replies above and I couldn't be bothered editing it to reflect that.**

Seeing as no-one else is here yet, I thought I'd say a couple of things, from a non-expert, eternal noob point of view.

In terms of reading material, there's more information around dealing with real-world flying and combat flying than you can poke a stick at. None of which I myself own or can refer you to, as I never really got into that side of it. You might try having a look around the old Ubisoft Il-2 forums for links and other info though. There'd be years worth of questions and answers in those forums alone.

As for your numbered questions. Without getting into the technical side of it, and just dealing with the way the game models such things-

1) Trial and error. Just get in a plane and practice taking off and landing. Take the machines to their limits and beyond, to see for yourself what the different components do, at what point they break etc.

2) and 3) You adjust these depending on your altitude in order to use fuel and keep your engine running most efficiently. Your engine will start chugging and be slow if the fuel mix is wrong. You can even see trails being blown out your exhausts at high altitudes if you have the mixture too rich.

4) The radiator cools your engine. It's the vents in the radiator covers (cowlings) that you adjust to let more air go through the radiator and cool the engine. The trade-off there is that by letting more air in, by opening the vents more, you lose some air-speed. Some planes have an auto setting for this.

5) The elevators are the moveable horizontal bits on the tail wings, which are your main means of controlling your planes straight up and down movement.

6) Propeller pitch is the angle of the propellers actual blades. Somewhat like gears in other vehicles, the pitch can be adjusted to facilitate quick changes in speed or for efficient cruising at a more constant speed. A lot of planes have automatic propeller pitch.

7) Do the campaign that you find most interesting looking, in terms of the nationalities and planesets and locations involved. Any of them will be a learning experience.

8 ) Superchargers (as opposed to the usual 100%+ throttle) are only used on some planes at higher altitudes. Similar in nature to the fuel mix, but either on or off, with a somewhat convoluted method of implementation in some cases.

Hopefully some of that might help. Generally speaking, it's not as compicated as it might seem and there's a lot of leeway in-game when it comes to flying your plane effectively in combat.

Just wanted to add, I envy you and your 'noobie-ness' in some ways. I'd like to be newly discovering this sim series now myself, now that I have the equipment to run it well. I have fond memories of being overwhelmed by it all too, in a good way. I feel though I had the good fortune to be around when a lot of other people were discovering it at the same time too, and the flow of information was more current. Learning things from scratch means looking back into the recent past more so now. Hopefully the quality of the sim itself can maintain your interest though and not too much of it's sometimes obscure content remains unused.

As a last bit of information, and you've probably heard it before, but you simply must fly online at some point. I myself would say not too soon, for various reasons. It's just my opinion, but I'd recommend getting thoroughly familiar and competent with all aspects of the off-line game, even to the point of getting bored with it. Then go online, where everything amps up to a whole new level and the thing takes on a whole new meaning. With a skill set gained from off-line practice, you can go online, learn even more, and have air-combat encounters of a kind that you will remember for the rest of your life. They may be rare, and there's certainly a lot of negatives to the online aspect overall, but when it works, it really does convey something of what it must have been like for real.

Anyway, good luck with it all.

Les

[_RAAF_Firestorm]

Hey Stalker, great to see someone so fresh to this with such enthusiasm to embrace the difficult aspects head on. I believe a lot can be covered in a short session in (virtual) person online. Some questions for you:

1. Which part of the world are you from / what timezone are you in?
2. Do you have Hyperlobby installed?
3. Do you have Teamspeak installed?

[Blizzard36]

It's also worth remembering that you don't HAVE to fly with all those complexities enabled. You can turn off manual control of those and then the AI does it for you. You can enjoy the game and learn all the other parts without worrying about those minute details and try watch what the AI does. And then, once you're comfortable with the rest, you can turn those on and learn them.

As for a good starting campaign, I suggest the Leningrad one. The very long time spent in the same location and only one aircraft type flown per year removes a lot of variables.

[kimosabi]

Hi The Stalker,

If you're really interested in learning how to fly this sim you might wanna check out Joint-Ops Virtual Combat School. First course Basic Flight School is free and if you wanna go further it's a $50 fee for a whole year of membership plus a crapload of more advanced classes. Some of the instructors are pilots IRL.

[Daniël]

I've got one tip for practicing take-off's and landings: Try to take-off and land for the first time in navy planes, like the Grumman F6F Hellcat. They are more easy to handle.

And if you've got probleems with gunsights, like the gunsight of the Aichi D3A, the Ki-43 or the Fokker D'XXI, use
Ctrl D to open the valve. (The Fokker is in patch 4.09, but first download 4.08 otherwise the whole game doesn't work) Some gunsights have a sunglass, you can use that also by pressing Ctrl D.