4.13 development update discussion and feedback

[Royzewic]

Hi everyone and the Team! I experienced the Lavochkins are so... bugged or something, when they climbing vertical they still getting energy for 1-2 seconds, or don't lose any at least.
I'm playing IL-2 1946 since 3 years, told to myself -No, it cannot be- and other vulgar words in my language, but it's very annoying. So, please fix this flight model if is there a way.

Best Regards:
Royzewic

[Treetop64]

Originally Posted by Royzewic

Hi everyone and the Team! I experienced the Lavochkins are so... bugged or something, when they climbing vertical they still getting energy for 1-2 seconds, or don't lose any at least.
I'm playing IL-2 1946 since 3 years, told to myself -No, it cannot be- and other vulgar words in my language, but it's very annoying. So, please fix this flight model if is there a way.

Best Regards:
Royzewic

Lol...

This is an old, old, OLD issue. Like, about a decade old. It's a legacy of one of Oleg's super-mega-ultra-uber-performing Lavochkin FMs. The La-7s in particular were all but unstoppable. It was normal for AI (and even a live player in cases) to sustain high-speed bat turns and steep climbs without losing much energy at all. In addition, they were nearly indestructible. I can't count how many jokes were made about "Soviet Stronkest Delta Wood is Bestest!" in the old Ubi forums.

Believe it or not, what we have now is actually a toned-down version of the old Lavochkin's FM; it's not nearly as OP now as it used to be, though it is still quite formidable. In reality, the La-7 was a very strong and dynamic aircraft, more than a match in a dogfight against even the FW-190s. Not sure how well the relative performance between the two is represented in the sim, but now it is generally considered acceptable by many in the community (either that, or we simply got tired of making noise about it over the years lol), considering what Luftwaffles had to contend with before...

Sorry if that doesn't help your concerns, but I just thought it was a funny topic that brought up a lot of interesting memories and topics.

[gaunt1]

Originally Posted by Royzewic

Hi everyone and the Team! I experienced the Lavochkins are so... bugged or something, when they climbing vertical they still getting energy for 1-2 seconds, or don't lose any at least.
I'm playing IL-2 1946 since 3 years, told to myself -No, it cannot be- and other vulgar words in my language, but it's very annoying. So, please fix this flight model if is there a way.

Best Regards:
Royzewic

Also, it is impossible to stall/spin with La-5FN. It really looks like there is a strong bias towards Lavochkins, they are the only aircrafts in the game that still have that exaggerated flight models. From the russian side, Yaks are very well modeled (except Yak-9U, a little bit too fast), so Lavochkins should be fixed to match historical accuracy. There are quite detailed test reports available from NII VVS, these should be used as reference.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Treetop64

Lol...

This is an old, old, OLD issue. Like, about a decade old. It's a legacy of one of Oleg's super-mega-ultra-uber-performing Lavochkin FMs. The La-7s in particular were all but unstoppable. It was normal for AI (and even a live player in cases) to sustain high-speed bat turns and steep climbs without losing much energy at all. In addition, they were nearly indestructible. I can't count how many jokes were made about "Soviet Stronkest Delta Wood is Bestest!" in the old Ubi forums.

Believe it or not, what we have now is actually a toned-down version of the old Lavochkin's FM; it's not nearly as OP now as it used to be, though it is still quite formidable. In reality, the La-7 was a very strong and dynamic aircraft, more than a match in a dogfight against even the FW-190s. Not sure how well the relative performance between the two is represented in the sim, but now it is generally considered acceptable by many in the community (either that, or we simply got tired of making noise about it over the years lol), considering what Luftwaffles had to contend with before...

Sorry if that doesn't help your concerns, but I just thought it was a funny topic that brought up a lot of interesting memories and topics.

Indeed, the situation was much worse and got quite a bit better. I think the G limit modelling implemented by TD had the largest effect on the aircraft as it can still technically perform the bat turn but it will break the airframe doing it. Also the German planes got some much needed love as well.

Originally Posted by gaunt1

Also, it is impossible to stall/spin with La-5FN. It really looks like there is a strong bias towards Lavochkins, they are the only aircrafts in the game that still have that exaggerated flight models. From the russian side, Yaks are very well modeled (except Yak-9U, a little bit too fast), so Lavochkins should be fixed to match historical accuracy. There are quite detailed test reports available from NII VVS, these should be used as reference.

I wouldn't mind a look at the La-5/7 series FM again. The problem with the La-5FN not stalling I believe is to do with elevator authority. Every other La-5/7 can pull quite a bit harder but also stall... so in some ways the La-5FN is a bit handicapped although in some ways its a benefit as it artificially prevents the pilot from stalling it seriously. It also reduces its peak ability.

[gaunt1]

Originally Posted by IceFire

I wouldn't mind a look at the La-5/7 series FM again. The problem with the La-5FN not stalling I believe is to do with elevator authority. Every other La-5/7 can pull quite a bit harder but also stall... so in some ways the La-5FN is a bit handicapped although in some ways its a benefit as it artificially prevents the pilot from stalling it seriously. It also reduces its peak ability.

Well, maybe you are right, but still, when I tested the maneuverability of the La-5FN, versus an ace AI A6M2, I couldnt outturn the Zero, but I definitely could keep up with it. In a red vs red test, Yaks had no chance in a turning fight vs La series. The Yak-3 was close, but still not enough. The La-5 was good, that cannot be denied, but not THAT good.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by gaunt1

Well, maybe you are right, but still, when I tested the maneuverability of the La-5FN, versus an ace AI A6M2, I couldnt outturn the Zero, but I definitely could keep up with it. In a red vs red test, Yaks had no chance in a turning fight vs La series. The Yak-3 was close, but still not enough. The La-5 was good, that cannot be denied, but not THAT good.

Somewhat unrelated may be the turn times being a little too low.

The trick with the Yak is that although it's a good turner (and generally gets better as the series goes on) the best turn speed is at a medium speed around 300 or 350kph. Keep it at that speed and you can out turn any opponent that the Yak is likely to face in a historic battle.

The La-5FN seems to turn well at more speeds... which may be an error. I'm not sure. It is a top performer which I wouldn't want to take away from it. But it would probably benefit from a close look.

[gaunt1]

Correct me if Im wrong, but I read somewhere (dont know where, it was long ago) that the Lavochkin's initial turn rate was excellent, but sustained wasnt that good. Still much better than 190, and comparable to 109G. So unlike Yaks, it wasnt a true dogfighter, but had incredibly good low altitude speed performance, and it was best employed as an energy fighter.

Concerning speed performance:
From NII VVS tests (most reliable source I think), it is revealed that low altitude performance (up to 3000m) is more or less OK for La5/F/FN, ingame but above that, they are either too fast (15-20km/h - La-5FN, 20km/h - La-5) or way too fast (30km/h - La-5F) And this is if we compare the best performing aircraft tested by NII VVS and what we have ingame.

Real turn rates are 1-1.5 seconds worse that ingame. This sounds insignificant, but it isnt.

La-7 is a different beast, which was definitely far superior to any german plane. We would need an additional 1944 version, with lower performance as in NII VVS tests.

[Pursuivant]

Here's two "eye candy" options for multi-crew planes:

1) The ability to order specific AI crew to bail out without triggering a full-crew bailout. That is, you could order just the bombardier or tail gunner, or both, to bail out.

2) The ability for a player controlled crewman to bail out without triggering a full-crew bailout. That is, you as tailgunner could bail out leaving the rest of the crew behind.

The first option is a nice bit of eye candy for bomber pilots who want to give badly wounded and bleeding crew a chance of surviving, albeit it possibly in captivity.

Historically, it wasn't uncommon for Western Allied bomber crew over Axis-occupied Europe to bundle their grievously wounded colleagues into their parachutes and toss them out the escape hatch. The idea was that the wounded man was almost certainly going to die if he had to spend many hours at high altitude before he could get medical care, whereas the Germans might take pity on him and save his life if he survived the parachute drop.

Another reason for the first option is to simulate the heroic bomber pilot who orders everyone out of the plane except for himself prior to attempting to land a badly damaged plane, or orders everyone else out while he attempts to keep a mortally wounded plane flying prior to bailing out himself.

The second option is sort of silly, but I guess it would allow players to quit a mission without ending it.That way you could still watch the action from your parachute or some other view. For online players, bailing out would be slightly less of a dick move than just logging out of the server.

Either option could also be used to simulate secret agent drops, with a particular crewman actually being a spy/partisan. It would allow any bomber that doesn't have a dedicated paratrooper loadout to drop a few parachutists.