IL2 and Sound Modding

[BSS_Sniper]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

I bet alot of you have flown on server's with other players who use the Mod and you did not know it. That is a fact. Unless you fly on a closed password protected server. All this mod does is improve (IMO) some aspects of the game. I understand Billfish's example about mirror's (historical correct), clean gunsights (historical correct), clean canopy's (show me one pilot that would fly with a dirty canopy!) and the like. In her opinion, that is a "cheat". I like alot of others say that the track IR option is a "built in" cheat. A "cheat" is using something for a unfair advantage. For me that is a track IR. If everyone had it, it would not be a "unfair advantage". There IS a difference between using one and not on a closed pit server. Ask anyone who upgraded to one. But that is the opinion of a few. I know, I know, Bearcat.....apples and oranges!

I just got a new joystick for X-mas, a simple Saitek EVO (tm), and it is 1000% better than my 7 year old Sidewinder (tm). I have been getting more kill's now online than before. Flying much smoother (and I am a terrible fighter pilot), that some who have flown with me before are screaming "CHEATER, YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PILOT, YOU SHOT ME DOWN, YOU MUST BE CHEATING !!!!" Untill I tell them I finally got off my lazy butt and got a new stick. Then it is "OK, I GOT A NEW ONE TOO.....LOL". Is that a "unfair advantage" ? Matter of opinion, I say.

"Cheating", unless it is clearly proven, by definition, can be just a matter of opinion. What I see is, servers that embrace the Mod openly, are well populated. Some servers who "Damn" the mod (not all,the WW arcade ones are always full), are usely sparce populated. It is just like the so-called "Full Real" servers. Tons of them on Hypnolobby, but rarely visited.

There maybe no clear answer to the self-made schizm now. Both sides are "RIGHT" in their minds. I think ther servers should state from the beginning, MOD or NON-MOD. This BS, "if you use the Mod on our server we will ban you and tell everyone" is for the birds. Tell them simply to please leave, and please STATE IT BEFORE SO THE PEOPLE KNOW !!!!!


DerAlte

I'm guessing you haven't been on HL, ever. lol The fullswitch servers are the ones that are full. Zeke's vs Wildcats, Spits vs 109's, Warclouds. Also, the only time a windshield is clean is just before the engine starts. I flew all day today with a crapload of junk on my windshield. Bugs, grass, dirt, ect. Windshields are never clean. I'm not sure where you got that idea from. Thats the problem too, people making some of the mods are making them with the their own idea and really not much more info or research instead of a team with someone in charge that knows and has standards to follow..........there's some dots for everyone

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by Rama

And having many "full switch" server empty doesn't mean "almost nobody plays full real" as you try to show.
Just take a a paper and a pencil, and make some easy math: what I can see almost each night is around 300 players playing AW + around 100 playing "full switch" DF, thats 400 on around 900, so between 40% and 50% of the hyperlobby players.
40% is what you call "sparce". I think we don't have the same definition for words.

OK, OK..................................... Wutever Dood. You bees right, as usual.

DerAlte

[BSS_Sniper]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

OK, OK..................................... Wutever Dood. You bees right, as usual.

DerAlte

He is

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by BSS_Sniper

I'm guessing you haven't been on HL, ever. lol The fullswitch servers are the ones that are full. Zeke's vs Wildcats, Spits vs 109's, Warclouds. Also, the only time a windshield is clean is just before the engine starts. I flew all day today with a crapload of junk on my windshield. Bugs, grass, dirt, ect. Windshields are never clean. I'm not sure where you got that idea from. Thats the problem too, people making some of the mods are making them with the their own idea and really not much more info or research instead of a team with someone in charge that knows and has standards to follow..........there's some dots for everyone

Well first of all, as ex-military I know one of the last things done before take-off was to wipe the canopy clean one last time.

Remind me to NEVER fly with you........

DerAlte

Edit: And who says the "World according to Oleg" is right? That I always wondered.

[BSS_Sniper]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Well first of all, as ex-military I know one of the last things done before take-off was to wipe the canopy clean one last time.

Remind me to NEVER fly with you........

DerAlte

Edit: And who says the "World according to Oleg" is right? That I always wondered.

You should reread my post then. lol I said, "is clean just before you start the engine" meaning it gets dirty, soon after, doesn't stay clean. Thanks again for reading thoroughly.

[LT.INSTG8R]

I just wanted to say I LOVE the sound mod. I have no interest in any of the other things that are possible because of its creation(I do understand the implications tho) I have been flying Il-2 on and off for 3-4 yrs now and this has totally rejuvenated the game for me.
Now I am 95% co-op and have been flying with the same bunch for years so I guess for me anything other than the sound mod has no interest to me either way. Do I think there needs to be some sort of solution to the "other"mods available(there are many others that interest me but I wont touch any of them, heck even the AI flyables dont interest me) Of course I do. I respect the Dogfighter's opinions, it IS an issue that needs to be dealt with. But I wont be trodden down by the "powers that be" because someone brought something "harmless" to this sim that rejuvenates it for me and many others(again I get that the box is open and theres alot more in it than just this). If I am a "cheater" because I love the new sounds so be it. Call me what you will but its a much needed breath of fresh air for this sim even more so then new maps or planes. I love the sounds and the people I fly with love it as much as I do but the interest in any other modding for me ends right there.

I would love it if the boys from AAA could some up with a "Standard" that could be accepted by all.

Thats my contribution to the 100 page goal.

[Decon]

Greets!

Been around a long time and just now discovered the sound mod and others. I certainly didn't read every post here but a lot of them. I agree with Ivan, find a solution and LOCK the online games down solid.

That said, if some effort was made at an earlier time to address some of the "fluff" that adds to immersion this may have not become such a large scale problem.

Finally, I flew WarBirds in the mid-90's and Aces High on and off. I was here for the IL2 Beta. I have played golf online, raced everything, and played plenty of the FPS stuff. If you all think this SIM wasn't hacked a long time ago you're noobs! Look at the rts.dll and the NoCD .exe's. Turn up the oxygen a notch or two and think about it! Mod or No-Mod Have fun your way.

Remember...Believe little of what you hear, half of what you read, and NOTHING online, it simply ain't REAL! You'll sleep better at night and never get angry with your FUN.

Check "6" and Happy New Year S~

Man of Many Names

[LEXX]

Well I don't mod anything, because I'm stuck at 4.04, and don't even play that, although I would ~love~ to modup this sim if I hadn't found another sim to get deep into.

If I did already have 1946, I would have personal reservations about modding up with tools that were -- I assume -- originally hacked without Oleg's approval.

But, I have NO interest in upgrading and playing Oleg's sim again, unless I were to mod it up, because the new modding offers enough potential features to bring me back to WW2 Eastern Front simming.

As Alan Greenspan might say, I'm having an irrational connumdrum. I like to think that if Oleg somehow "approved" the hack-originated modding, I would happily buy 1946(**). I'm kinda rationalizing that maybe this late in the sim, if no fix comes with 4.09, then Oleg doesn't really mind, but that sounds a bit too self-convenient.

(**)

Make a deal.
What kind of deal?
You know, a Deal deal. Maybe the guy's a Republican.
--
woof woof

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by HanzBlixz

We’ve come full circle. In 2003 a program was written for CFS2 by HA_13 (aka Ziggy) called Fairskies. Its purpose was to keep mods and cheaters out of servers that wanted a clean, fair (original files only) dogfight.

I collected information from many players and provided feedback to Ziggy on how many of the cheats where done. As the different versions of Fairskies came out I would show Ziggy the remaining holes that needed to be plugged. This was after the first Gulf War and jokingly people were calling me “Hans Blix the weapons inspector for CFS2” (The real Hans Blix was the UN weapons inspector trying to find WMD in Iraq). As a result and joke my callsign was changed to HanzBlixz.

At first Fairskies put a huge dent in the cheating that was going on in servers that required Fairskies. Flyers who were dumb enough to join a server and try their FM mods to see of they could get away with it were caught. Many of the cheaters stopped joining the servers that they played on in fear of being caught. Flyers that were dominating dogfights suddenly went from heros to zeros and started flying bombers in no shooting allowed games. Even more changed their callsigns or haven’t been seen since.

Some eventually found ways to beat Fairskies and started sharing the hacks with friends. Many of us were also flying IL2 at the time. When we showed Ziggy all the ways that Fairskies was being beat and how IL2 was different, a decision was made to stop further work on Fairskies and move on to IL2. Fairskies did stop some cheating in CFS2, but as a side affect also launched a mass exodus of flyers from CFS2 to IL2.

Ziggy didn’t have an easy task at trying to develop Fairskies in a flight sim that was so open. I remember him saying that MS would not help him in anyway, or answer any questions and that was a real hurdle for him.

If 409m server does not end up with a better anti-hack check then looking further into crazyivans suggestion may make sense. This depends on several things, including how far off Bob is from actually being released. Working with 1C or at least getting some answers to questions will be much easier than trying to get info out of MS and IL2 is already far more secure then CFS2 was.

If some of you do decide to write the a 3rd party protection program, have a place were everyone can report specifics and holes on how people can cheat. NOT in an open forum or to be shared with the public. Maybe with a specific contact at 1C, a dedicated 1C email address or something? The person or team that attempts to develop the anti cheat program can then review and compare the reports to see if they covered all the holes.

I have several friends that are members of the mod community that want to improve the sim and not abuse it. Some info and tracks I posted in this forum came from AAA members (and a former member) who don’t like the path that some of the modders are heading down. So, get the modders involved like Josse, MrJolly, Wasy and others to help with at least giving input. They have all declared how they are against using mods to cheat and they are aware that their mods are being abused to do just that. I think if you give them a chance they will help.
Happy New Year to all.

That is actually great news. IMO it would be fantastic if this tool whatever it was could concentrate on screening FM/DM/Weps and other things that could be used to cheat changes seperately from other changes.. and leave the option open for some of the other things. I have not tried any of the mods at this point but to be totally honest and fair, some of them do sound good, heck the sound mod sounds good (no pun intended) along with the default skins mod for static aircraft. I think it would be a shame and only increase the rift between in the community if all the mods were carte blance rendered un useable by this tool... but that sounds like a great idea and is the first real glimmer of hope I have heard since this whole thing started.

[LT.INSTG8R]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

That is actually great news. IMO it would be fantastic if this tool whatever it was could concentrate on screening FM/DM/Weps and other things that could be used to cheat changes seperately from other changes.. and leave the option open for some of the other things. I have not tried any of the mods at this point but to be totally honest and fair, some of them do sound good, heck the sound mod sounds good (no pun intended) along with the default skins mod for static aircraft. I think it would be a shame and only increase the rift between in the community if all the mods were carte blance rendered un useable by this tool... but that sounds like a great idea and is the first real glimmer of hope I have heard since this whole thing started.

Exactly Bearcat. There are some wonderful things being done in the name of improvement and have no ill intent. I held off as long as I could on the sound mod but I have used it and now I dont think I could bring myself to go back to the old sounds.Sound has always been a big priority in anything for me. Guess its the musician in me.
Heck my mate and I just sat on the runway revving our Spit Vc's just to listen to each other. Flew formation for miles and miles just hitting F3 to hear them both whip past together and thats just the Spit! I mean when I first fired up the P-40 I said "Hey thats an Allison!, guys did P-40s have Allisons? I only knew that sound from growing up in an area where Tractor Pulling was popular and so was the Allison as an engine.
They have put alot of effort into this and it doesnt deserve to be just quashed because others do have ill intent.

I hope some sort of "Booster Pack" that has genuine improvements to the sim that the entire community can agree on can happen as there are so many GOOD things that are becoming available that I would hate to see them overshadowed by the bad things.

I think FM/DM/WM should be left alone. Thats something nobody should have access too. But putting a fresh coat of paint on the old crate should be embraced.