Some considerations about the FM purists...

[bw_wolverine]

I really like the idea of the % modifier based on 'production run' or whatever you want to call it. That's a neat idea that, while perhaps not making hard-core simulation people happy, would certainly make the game more FUN. At the end of the day, if I'm not having fun with the title, I don't want to run it.

What would be cool to add to that idea is persistance. Say you do get one of these great production run planes to fly. As long as you don't get shot down, you continue to have that 3% advantage. Then, when you're shot down, you roll the dice again and see what you get.

[kimosabi]

Originally Posted by ZaltysZ

Small errors are such little nasty things, whose like to accumulate. If you allow few kph off here, few m/s off there and so on, in the end you may get something very off.

Yeah you may end up in a Tiger tank. Let's just hope they haven't implemented Mustangs and .50cal then.

[Viper2000]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger

I was playing an IL-2 1946 mission last night: an escort to some dive bombers over Crimea with enemy fighters coming up to intercept, and then it came to my mind: why do we need so much FM accuracy to the mph/rpm/roc, and what can actually be considered a reliable info source?

The whole gaming experience is more than outturning, outclimbing, outspeeding our opponents, there's tactical decisions, there's improvisation, there's teamwork.. I don't get why some of us are so anal about the performance charts of our planes, especially now that the game is still not completely finalised. Besides, unless there's some gross mistakes, I think I can well live with a Spit that does 350mph where he should do 355 according to some pilot's notes.. considering all the variables of real life, what's 5mph? Play with your numbers, learn how the plane behaves in the sim and get the best out of it. I remember the good ol' debates on the russian UFO fighters in IL-2, which were made of kryptonite and powered by turbofans, but despite all that I still managed to shoot them down with my 109, and not because I'm a good shot, it's because I learned their quirks, the limits, but above all learning when sometimes it's better avoiding a dogfight, simply because you are in a disadvantageous situation..

I would like to hear you guys' opinion on this, sometimes we get so sidetracked by secondary aspects that we seem to forget we're supposed to have fun playing our sim..

If a job is worth doing, IMO it's worth doing properly.

Personally I take the view that flight test report's by the operator's flight test organisation (ie A&AEE in the case of RAF aeroplanes) constitute a reliable source.

I'm less convinced by test reports concerning captured enemy aeroplanes because they tend not to be operated in a representative way due to lack of detailed intelligence, spare parts & consumables, as well as battle damage, and the need to anticipate future developments (which could lead to deliberate over-boosting of captured engines for example).

It's perfectly reasonable to say that the average fight is more about SA than aircraft kinematic performance, but it doesn't necessarily follow that kinematic performance is unimportant.

For example, given poor SA, the pilot of the faster aeroplane will tend to have a longer life expectancy, because it's much much harder to bounce a faster aeroplane than it is to bounce a slower aeroplane. So it's actually very difficult to separate performance, strategy and tactics in an objective manner - Good pilots tend to be "lucky", and "lucky" pilots are often good.

I think that people tend to pay more attention to things like maximum speed, rate of climb, turn rate etc than other parameters like stability & control simply because it's easy to test and print out a diagram that lots of people can understand and replicate.

Also, I would point out that people who are typing in the forum are by definition not having fun in the sim, because you can't do both things at once unless you have at least 4 hands and 2 keyboards...

[jg27_mc]

Originally Posted by Viper2000

...Also, I would point out that people who are typing in the forum are by definition not having fun in the sim, because you can't do both things at once unless you have at least 4 hands and 2 keyboards...

At this point it's almost more fun to moan/whine or share opinions and debate in the forums than actually flying the simulation...

e.g.

SP

lack of content + all known bugs + lack of performance = boring/stressful

MP

all known bugs + multiplayer bugs + steam bugs + lack of performance = few players online/lack of fun/even more stressful

[Blackdog_kt]

There's some pretty good points in this thread and i also like the idea about the +/- 3% production values tolerance. I was about to propose something similar but i thought it would infuriate too many people so i didn't

In any case, i think the general consensus is that we do need accurate FMs but as in real life, the FM should not be super-consistent each and every time between a bunch of different airframes (at least when a relevant difficulty/realism setting is enabled).

If we could combine that with a dynamic campaign engine in the future (both for single and multiplayer) to track the condition of the aircraft between sorties and provide some continuity of airframe, it would be very much closer to how things used to be in reality.

[Jotaele]

i really does not bother about FM if the game if there are other issues that makes me feel out of the cockpit or like im flying a game.In example flickering shadows put me out of game.Or IA weight plane doing fast spirals until ground .
Specially with a so rubbery pilot view sistem, makes me disconnected from the plane´s behavior, it feels very scripted, i likes better pilot view i have seen better g and shakes effects in racing titles or even in 1 person shooters.
There are a great lack of options to make the game at your liking.

besides that, i prefer a game with good flight DINAMICS than exacts flight model. You can made a 109 in CFS 1 that matches the plane peformance precisely, but it would have a poor feeling o behavior due to the old flight dinamics. CLOD has excelent flight dinamics , we need a better game to enjoy it.

[ATAG_Doc]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

Not true my friend, some of us have work which doesn't allow me to play games, but does give me plenty of time to surf the forums!

I do agree with the earlier post about introducing false production value limiters to the FM, with enough little inaccuracies, the FM is bound to get borked to a point where each of our favorite craft gets too far away from what it should be.

That said, how many of you can actually get to the limits of the plane (especially max velocity in level flight) and stay there for any length of time? Turn CEM on and engine heat on, and how long can you stay there now? In terms of pure speed, the theoretical max is relatively unused. If that last 5kmh is what you're counting on to win the fight, you're doing it wrong!

Brilliant post!

[Anvilfolk]

I know very little about the current FM accuracy, but I have a question related to the previous post. If you're flying with CEM/full-realism, how do those max speeds really affect flight? I mean, you have to optimally fly your airplane the entire time, and during combat that doesn't necessarily happen. I get the feeling that small differences in speed accuracy would get dissolved in flight due to CEM. Any more expert pilots agree with this?


Another more practical thing that has been mentioned, but that hasn't been given due attention: the assumption that given reliable a reliable source of aircraft performance, you can accurately model it in a combat simulator.

Even if you have reliable sources for aircraft performance (which is an open question), I would reckon it's still a monstrous task to actually simulate it. It should be quite easy to implement performance graphs or matrices or anything (as in FSX, for instance?), but if you do that you don't know how to deal with dynamic damage modelling. So graphs are really just a guideline. I'm guessing the current approach is to have a proper physics engine, control surfaces modelling, and control surface effect on movement depending on different conditions (e.g. weather). Then, as the airplane gets damaged, control surface and airplane properties change (i.e. more friction, less lift, etc), and the physics engine needs to be able to cope with this. Graphs are useless here, no matter how accurate they are.

And modelling an airplane in a physics engine to simulate what real-life performance is, instead of directly modelling real-life performance (according to performance graphs), is completely non-trivial.

I'm just saying that they might want to get real-life performance, but given that damage modelling needs to be in, it becomes an overly complex, heuristic, impossible to really understand process. It's probably guess-and-test, and with the absurd amount of variables..... I don't envy them!

[carguy_]

Originally Posted by Anvilfolk

I'm just saying that they might want to get real-life performance, but given that damage modelling needs to be in, it becomes an overly complex, heuristic, impossible to really understand process. It's probably guess-and-test, and with the absurd amount of variables..... I don't envy them!

The IL2 community agreed long ago that it is not the real life figures that need 100% attention. The trick is to simply recreate the valid differences between the planes. Who cares if the FW190A3 has 2sec slower roll rate if it is still much better than the Spitfire by a good margin? I don`t care if my Bf109 has a 10m/s slower climb rate that in real life. If I still outclimb the Hurricane in a historical manner then I don`t see the problem.