Flight Sim Beginner Questions

[facepoppies]

Hm, i'm wondering now if I can use the hatswitch on my stick for free look?

Yeah, somebody else told me to start with the earlier il-2 game, but I don't wanna. Is that crazy? I can't think of a better reason not to than "I don't wanna." Haha. This game, from all the vids I've seen, looks so freaking amazing.

My specs are i7950, 6gb ddr3 ram, and a gtx 580, so I should be able to play it on medium. And, hey, if I have to go through some patches to play it on high detail, then I'll wait.

[Ailantd]

Originally Posted by facepoppies

Hm, i'm wondering now if I can use the hatswitch on my stick for free look?

Yeah, somebody else told me to start with the earlier il-2 game, but I don't wanna. Is that crazy? I can't think of a better reason not to than "I don't wanna." Haha. This game, from all the vids I've seen, looks so freaking amazing.

My specs are i7950, 6gb ddr3 ram, and a gtx 580, so I should be able to play it on medium. And, hey, if I have to go through some patches to play it on high detail, then I'll wait.

Yes you can use the hatswitch.
All controls, view, camera, plane, etc... are fully customizable from setup.

[sg1221]

You should consider buying IL 2 1946 , it's very inexpensive , after you do
visit this website and the people there will teach you how to become a good pilot.
They are a great group of people and make learning fun

http://www.joint-ops.com/php2/index....tpage&Itemid=1

[Positronic]

I bought cliffs as my first flight sim (well first since on Amiga500 or something), few days later I have picked up il-2 1946 also, so much content for the price.

I have trackir envy also

[[RS]Boomer]

Ebay is a great place to find TrackIR for cheap. I picked my TrackIR 4 for $50 on ebay.

[Jaws2002]

Originally Posted by facepoppies

Hm, i'm wondering now if I can use the hatswitch on my stick for free look?

Yeah, somebody else told me to start with the earlier il-2 game, but I don't wanna. Is that crazy? I can't think of a better reason not to than "I don't wanna." Haha. This game, from all the vids I've seen, looks so freaking amazing.

My specs are i7950, 6gb ddr3 ram, and a gtx 580, so I should be able to play it on medium. And, hey, if I have to go through some patches to play it on high detail, then I'll wait.

That's the spirit!

Welcome facepoppies.

You can look around with the hat switch. It should come already mapped by default with the views.
You don't need any external stuf to fly. Sure once you got used with the game, controls and flying, you can try free track or other things, but they are not mandatory.
Even if the views are not maped you can do it yourself. Just go in the contrls meny and map the pan or snap views on the hat switch. They are both useful. Before I got trackIR i was playing for years with the hat. I prefered fast snap views in combat.

About learning to fly in a sim in genral, there are very good tutorials around that could help you a lot. They are not made for this game but the idea is to get the general idea.

Here are some good ones:


"In pursuit" is a great start:
http://pilotpress.wordpress.com/in-pursuit/

There's also a lot of good info on that site.

There are some excelent video tutorials about combat maneuvers made by Requem in Rise of Flight. They are made for a ww1 game, but are very good to understand some basic combat maneuvers:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Requiem10NS

Also a lot of great video tutorials for Il2 on "Dart's Page"
here:

http://www.darts-page.com/



Speciffically for Cliffs of Dover is good to do the in game tutorials/flight training and read the manual found in /Steam/Steam apps/common/Il-2 Sturmovik Cliffs of dover/ folder.
Anything that you don't understand, you can ask here and someone will help you.

Good luck and most important have fun.

[Anvilfolk]

I've been following the forum. My guess is that even with that system you might need to tweak the config file by hand or something like that.

I had a T-Flight Stick X, not HOTAS. It's not a particularly good stick, at least from my experience, but I suspect mine had some problems. Anyway, it has a twist rudder, which you definitely want, and it'll do.

Takes awhile to really enjoy a good flight sim. I hope you keep at it It won't be just bells and whistles, and there's an impressive amount of depth in it all. Hopefully you will enjoy it!

Here's to hoping all goes well! Let us know

[Rattlehead]

Originally Posted by facepoppies

Hm, i'm wondering now if I can use the hatswitch on my stick for free look?

My personal opinion is either use the hat switch ir use the mouse if you can get used to it. I use the mouse personally, and it works just fine.
One day I will invest in TrackIR, but for now I'm quite content.

TrackIR is fine and well, but what if you find out you don't enjoy the game or flight sims in general?

My advice is know what you're getting into before investing heavily into it.

[facepoppies]

Originally Posted by Rattlehead

My personal opinion is either use the hat switch ir use the mouse if you can get used to it. I use the mouse personally, and it works just fine.
One day I will invest in TrackIR, but for now I'm quite content.

TrackIR is fine and well, but what if you find out you don't enjoy the game or flight sims in general?

My advice is know what you're getting into before investing heavily into it.

The mouse works great, but it seems really difficult to move a hand to the mouse in the middle of a fight because you have to take your hand off the stick.

[Widow17]

Originally Posted by facepoppies

The mouse works great, but it seems really difficult to move a hand to the mouse in the middle of a fight because you have to take your hand off the stick.

use your left hand for mouse, its a little bit tricky in the beginning but works as great as trackir after some practice. Still you have to jump around with your left hand for throttle, proppitch flaps and stuff. So i recommend trackir for maximum game experience.