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I am leitmotiv of Ubi forum. I was advised by a good friend the 6 DOF mod was perfected, and that I should try it. I had taken 46 off my HD because it bored me to tears. After all the sound and fury over the mods, I was doubly sick of it. I tried the sound mod before I zapped 46, and I enjoyed the Bf 110C, and that was about it. I was not able to get the first version of the 6 DOF mod to work, so that was that. Yesterday I reinstalled 46, reinstalled the sound mod, and installed the 6 DOF mod---this time it worked perfectly.

Let me say this to those who are dead set against the mods. You would have to be literally insane to not use the 6 DOF mod. 6 DOF is not a luxury for a combat flight sim, it is not a gimmick, it is not fun---it is absolutely essential. The standard sight emulation system in IL-2 is archaic and completely artificial. With 6 DOF, IL-2 is nearly state-of-the-art. Without 6 DOF your situational awareness is massively reduced. Without 6 DOF your relationship to your gunsight is artificial. Without it all the beautiful modeling of the effects of telescopic sights is wasted. With 6 DOF, you literally bend over and zoom right into the telescopic view through the tube. You can't imagine it until you have done it. If you do not have the latest TrackIR, and if you have never used a 6 DOF flight sim like FSX, BOBII, or MAW, you will have no idea what you are missing. Your visual activity in the sim is completely natural. My favorite IL-2 airplane has always been the I-16. I always rankled at the completely unrealistic blocked view aft. I hated having to fishtail constantly to check six. I was always handling it in a completely gamed, artificial manner. With 6 DOF it is another airplane. All of the airplanes are completely new. Your relationship to each one is now different. You are not operating it using a mechanical, unrealistic sighting procedure. Fly the He 111 or Ju 88. Your experience is completely different. By the way, I think 6 DOF works better in IL-2 than it does in FSX, BOBII, or MAW---go figure that. Now IL-2 is my favorite flight sim again.

Recall we were "authoritatively" told 6 DOF was impossible for IL-2.

I have a theory. I suspect Oleg saw that the online community wanted IL-2 frozen. He is working on BOBSOW which intends to answer the needs of both offliners and onliners. I suspect he wants to see just how inventive the IL-2 people could be---after all, he intends to let outsiders use their models in BOB offline. So he let the frustration with the sedentary design build until the boiling point, and voila!---the mods. Now we see an unprecedented explosion of creativity and ingenuity. The reactionaries are screaming their heads off. Before the mods IL-2 was heading for oblivion. Now it will live for years even after BOB. Before 6 DOF IL-2 was a clumsy toy. With 6 DOF it is a combat flight sim. Live with it.