I don't know if it's too late for 4.12, but please consider treating all airborne objects - like parachutes, V-1 rockets or barrage balloons - as aircraft. That is:

* The option of automatically indicating their identity and/or range.

* The option of padlocking them as if they were aircraft (i.e., using the F4 rather than F5 key).

* The option of viewing them using the F2 or F3 keys (if not already an option, as is the case with parachutes).

This seems trivial, but I think that aerial objects can be padlocked at greater distances than ground objects and it also affects AI attack routines.

* And, since I'm griping about padlocking, how about the option to ID padlocked ground or sea units and/or give a range to them, just like they were air units?

* Finally, how about treating V-1s as a different class of objects than just ground objects or bombs for scoring purposes? After all, Allied pilots who shot down V-1s treated them as a different class of "kills" than ground units like trucks or trains.

That reminds me:
- Remove padlock completely from the next version.
- Erase the whole concept of padlocking from human consciousness.

Hypothetically, that's a great idea, BUT:

1) Without padlocking, how do you quickly command AI planes?

After all, a real human pilot could tell another human pilot - "Attack the column of T-34's 200 meters south of the ridge line." or "Attack the trailing Fw-190 in the formation at 9 o'clock low just outside of the low squadron of B-17s."

IL-2 AI doesn't have that level of sophistication, nor does it have any ability to command AI by voice.

2) Without padlocking, how do you deal with the limitations of computer graphics?

A human with great vision is going to be able to pick out little details at a distance which are necessarily simplified by the IL2 graphics engine - things like flashes of light on canopies, national markings, and so forth. A trained human is also going to be able to estimate range to a particular object and do things like estimate its speed, direction of travel, likely course changes, etc.

Padlocking allows you to keep track of a particular plane (or vehicle) despite the fact that the game doesn't give you the same visual acuity and visual clues that a real pilot would have.

So, to some extent, padlocking is realistic in that it gives the player the same information a real pilot would have - like the g-force indicator in the "wonder woman" view cockpit.

I don't like padlocking much either, but until we get God's Own Flight Sim, which gives the player 3-D vision, photoreal scenery, high-poly models with no LoD needed, photoreal skins, a graphics engine which can perfectly render objects, light and shadow with no loss of detail at a distance we still need padlocking.

There should just be more command options for AI. For Example: Attack-->Ground-->Tanks-->7'o clock. Then your wingman/flight/squad would try to locate tanks in that direction and attack.

Would be useful for attacking enemy airfields - now you have to be in FlaK range until you can tell them to attack FlaK. With the command Attack-->Ground-->FlaK-->12'o clock given a few kilometres before reaching that base the whole flight could attack simultaneously - thus giving the FlaK more targets to chose from and possibly decimating FlaK opposition in the first attack.

Or if encountering two flights of enemy planes on different bearings advise them to try to attack the more dangerous one first or or....

Great idea!

That would be convenient. Of course, what would be even more convenient would be a point and click padlock system using the mouse. As more folks get Track IR or equivalent, head movement can be controlled by TIR, plane controls can be controlled using HOTAS, rudder pedals and keyboard and padlocking can be controlled with the mouse.

Would be okay too.

But the original idea was to have a system of commanding the AI without the use of padlock.

And there could be much more information AI radioes to the player. Useful things. For example contact reports. Of course inaccurate ones, if done right depending on level of AI. Imagine coordinated attacks! And imagine flying to Grid XXYY and find nothing there - because they AI gave you an inaccurate report! Immersion.

These are good ideas. There are mods which represent ground control which vector you to a particular grid, so it shouldn't be that hard for AI planes to radio contact reports. Making AI ground control or planes give ACCURATE reports is a bit trickier.

Right now, the AI can just tell you that there are "enemy fighters" or "enemy bombers" with no more information. I can't tell you how many times I've had to jump out to map view to figure out which "red-1" was being attacked and here the heck they were on a large map.

It would be a lot more immersive if you had radar stations which could give you info like, "Tophat to Rabbit-1. Multiple inbound bogies, Angels 15, heading 85 degrees, 20 miles SE of Canterbury. Vector 125 degrees." or a pilot who could give you a contact report like, "This is Razor-1. We have 10 Me-410s, Angels 20, eastbound over Munster. Attacking now."

I'd settle for a simple "This is Pumpkin - engaging <number of> enemy <planetype> at <coordinates>" planetype beeing fighters/bombers.

If done to the max, then an ace AI would 95% of the time give spot on reports -maybe even get the specific planetype, a veteran say 70%, and regular and novice even less. And novice should make greater range of errors, worst case estimating half/double of actual enemys, no type or wrong one, and coordinates of by 10 km or so.

There is just that much that could be done with radio, right now its more a nuisance(bleiben sie auf kurs zum kuckuck...or the endless landing communication).
Yeah, right now I think about 80% of them are Red flight - more unique codenames would be really nice - besides from beeing realistic. And I don't think it would be that difficult to do.
Yes please. That way you could get (parts of) the picture of whats happening beyond your visual range - but there would still be fog of war.

Stronger Ho-5 20mm cannons on the KI-84 Ib would be nice. The 4 cannons on that thing do less damage than 2 MG151/20. They may have been weaker in RL, but by that much?