Friday Update, June 08, 2012

[Skoshi Tiger]

Originally Posted by Winger

It will only end when the german planes are totally outclassed in any discipline.
I really hope we dont get all Spit performing like the UFO Spit IIa did before the alpha patch. Its FM was just plain stupid overpowered.

Winger

Hopefully the following points mentioned by B6,

Originally Posted by B6

Corrected fuel model for more realistic gas mileage.

· Increased drag created by the radiator.

will help make correct engine handling a major concern for pilots. Hopefully it will break us out of the habbit of opening the radiators and charging around at full throttle.

The time limits will come into play naturally due to engine over heating etc. Top speeds won't be effected, but pilots will have to fly at cruise setting and speeds to get to and loiter in the combat area. People won't be able to fly at their maximum energy state for hours at a time. To be successful they will have to plan each of their encounters.

No 109 UFO's either, just as it should be!

All looking good. Roll on patch day!

[Osprey]

Quite. It's not as if anybody even had to deal with IIa's online anyway because they were complained out of the servers. RAF have had to deal with severe under-modelling for a long time and I'm looking forward to this patch.

[Blackdog_kt]

In my opinion the main thing to keep in mind is how to make the sim accurate and not be "vindictive", for lack of a better word, to players of the other team. The balance swings one way or the other with each patch as things get fixed. Ideally, everything would be fixed at once but usually ideal things don't happen in reality. So, we get one fix that favors one side in this patch, another fix that favors the other side in the next one and so on. It's no use getting irritated over it

I'm satisfied with the solution because i wanted both 87 and 100 oct variants in the sim. Having only one or the other was too restrictive for my taste in terms of possible dynamic scenarios eg, in a dynamic campaign a successful bombing effort could deplete fuel supplies and force the RAF to fly the inferior 87 oct versions, but only if they actually exist as flyable models in the sim.

Coupled with the radiator drag adjustments it will make things interesting and at the end of the day that's what i'm after: interesting gameplay within historical performance values.

If the rest of the performance issues are corrected too, we get the best of both worlds. It's through a strange run of luck really, but BoB is one of the few points during WWII where having historical accuracy can also create good gameplay balance without resorting to artificial and unrealistic gimmicks to level the playing field.

The LW had the faster planes but they were harder to manage and fly (manual pitch propellers and less maneuverable), while the RAF had easier to fly aircraft that were a bit slower. This creates a very balanced playing field while using different styles of fighter design.

I think that much of the outcry about Spit IIs was not the FM itself but the relative performance of it compared to everything else. It was probably the fighter that was closest to real world performance, but everything else was so undermodeled that it outclassed everything by too wide a margin, it was almost a win button in moderately capable hands.

I expect that with the new toned down Hurricanes, Spit Is up to spec, Spit IIs as they are more or less, corrected 109 speeds, the inclusion of M-shells and a DB601N variant for the 110s, as well as a second look on CEM for all fighters, everything will fall into place quite nicely and we will have interesting choices to make.

A blue pilot could fly a DB601N equipped 110 and probably be the fastest of all fighters with awesome firepower, but god forbid if he lets down his guard and gets bounced or decides to mix it up a bit: the poor maneuverability and low acceleration will make it very difficult to get back up to high speed and escape.

In a similar fashion, 109s will be vulnerable to being bounced even by Hurricanes depending on situational factors. For example, if the 109 is throttled a bit back to cool the engine down and a Hurricane with a cool engine dives on it and engages overboost.

Or in reverse, a flight of Spitfires might have strained their engines during a high-angle overboosted climb to the bombers, so that when getting bounced by escorts they can't keep pushing the engines further because their engines are already hot.

Performance was very closely matched and victory depended a lot on tactics, individual skill and pure luck/situational factors in each mission. If the sim is properly tweaked, i expect that engine conditions and temperatures at the start of an engagement will carry as much, if not more, weight for the overall outcome of it as the initial energy states of combatants. And i really can't wait until we get there, because for way too long we've been judging everything based on top performance only, without realizing that it cannot be maintained indefinitely in the real world

[5./JG27.Farber]

Originally Posted by Osprey

Quite. It's not as if anybody even had to deal with IIa's online anyway because they were complained out of the servers. RAF have had to deal with severe under-modelling for a long time and I'm looking forward to this patch.

What servers have you been playing on? They have been available on ATAG axis vs allies for some time. Both the Spit IIa and the Bf109E4 have been available in the numbers around 12 as a limited aircraft... The Bf109E4 has more of a right to be there than the Spit IIa and are both only included as a balancing agent. Yes the FM's have been amiss for sometime but you can only relie on this problem for so long before you have to address your own flying stlye. Right FM or not.

Ive been supportive of the reds need for better FM's but when you actually have those what are you going to complain about then? Ive voted for the red 100 octane and other problems... I hope this fixes things for red pilots.

[CaptainDoggles]

Ignore him, Farber. Osprey isn't interested in a solution, he is interested in winning.

[catito14]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

Hopefully the following points mentioned by B6,


will help make correct engine handling a major concern for pilots. Hopefully it will break us out of the habbit of opening the radiators and charging around at full throttle.

The time limits will come into play naturally due to engine over heating etc. Top speeds won't be effected, but pilots will have to fly at cruise setting and speeds to get to and loiter in the combat area. People won't be able to fly at their maximum energy state for hours at a time. To be successful they will have to plan each of their encounters.

No 109 UFO's either, just as it should be!

All looking good. Roll on patch day!

100% agree with you! An accurate and completely real "Complex Engine Management" is fundamental for a flight sim. (Really, we need a "I like" button)

[ElAurens]

Thanks for the update Black 6.

I hope the release version of the patch arrives soon, I miss flying.

[Osprey]

Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber

What servers have you been playing on? They have been available on ATAG axis vs allies for some time. Both the Spit IIa and the Bf109E4 have been available in the numbers around 12 as a limited aircraft... The Bf109E4 has more of a right to be there than the Spit IIa and are both only included as a balancing agent. Yes the FM's have been amiss for sometime but you can only relie on this problem for so long before you have to address your own flying stlye. Right FM or not.

Ive been supportive of the reds need for better FM's but when you actually have those what are you going to complain about then? Ive voted for the red 100 octane and other problems... I hope this fixes things for red pilots.

Farbs, I was replying to the post from Winger where he referred to 'pre-patch'. Ignore Doggles, he's just stirring as usual.

[Redroach]

Regarding Blenheim Level Stab:
Don't ever accuse me for pledging for historical inaccuracy! I'm the very last one this applies to! However, the reality is that you're flying mostly alone and don't have the pilot to fly straight and level while playing the bombardier's role.

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

For the Blenheim and every other bomber that doesn't have an autopilot, i was thinking of a "command the pilot" mode that would simulate the real procedure. I would also extend this to all existing bombers to simulate the fact that any pilot could be guided through the bomb run by the bombardier.

The way i see it working:

1) Switch to bombardier's seat.

2) Activate "command" mode (new keybinding)

3) The AI keeps the plane level. Up till now it's like a level stabilizer.

4) From this point on the similarities with level stab end. The player uses the same keybindings that are used to command left/right turns from the luftwaffe autopilots, but these have a different effect in "command" mode.

5) Every time the player taps these keys, the AI that is flying the plane is starting a gentle turn to the left/right.

6) Unlike the autopilot function (where the AP turns until the gyro heading matches the requested one), in command mode the turn continues until the bombardier explicitly tells the pilot to level off. This can be done by tapping the keys in the opposite direction: if you told the AI to steer left, pressing the key to steer right will level the plane off, and so on.

7) There would be a slight delay in matching commands to aircraft actions to simulate the time needed for the pilot to react (just like it happens with the AP to simulate their gyro-driven nature)


Such a function would not only solve the current problem, but also efficiently simulate the real thing and whatever gains and disadvantages exist in talking the pilot through the bomb run.

+
no need to use autopilots even in aircraft that have them
aircraft with no autopilots can level bomb with some precision even if only one human player is crewing them

-
less precise than autopilots due to the need to issue "level off" commands



If you guys like this idea, by all means add it as a suggested feature to the bugtracker.

Sounds like a good suggestion; however, I don't know if additional programming effort at this point is justified for that. I'd be perfectly happy with a simple LStab. ^^

[Blackdog_kt]

The simple level stab is probably a similar amount of programming, because

a) there is none currently implemented and

b) the one from previous IL2 can't be simply copied over because CoD is written in a different programming language.

What i'm trying to say is, if they spend time to make something like this, at least try to make it look semi-realistic. Not to mention that CoD already has similar code implemented: they would only have to modify the existing code that is used for the luftwaffe autopilots.

P.S No accusations made here, just a suggestion. Hope we get to fly some Blenheims on ATAG soon