A very bad learning tool.....

[MaxGunz]

Not as good at what?

[Woke Up Dead]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

Not as good at what?

Not as good at gunnery or evasive maneuvers in a close fight that they can't run away from. They're more timid, more predictable, easier to dodge and get a bead on in such situations.

[MaxGunz]

Originally Posted by Woke Up Dead

Not as good at gunnery or evasive maneuvers in a close fight that they can't run away from. They're more timid, more predictable, easier to dodge and get a bead on in such situations.

I don't agree about gunnery. Not at all.

And if you check videos where WWII fighter pilots tell, getting into close fights was usually the last thing you want.

How about energy management? LOL!

[Laurwin]

Well...

There's one thing that's definitely true, full real settings is harder than externals allowed and enemy cameras and enemy padlocks and icons.

Flying, shooting and spotting are way harder. The actual advantages and disadvantages of aircraft come to shine in full real in the best way possible.

It's certainly a different experience and somewhat more enjoyable IMO, than the less realistic servers. I used to really like the spitv109 server (full real but I think it allows HSFX history mod for extra content, and graphics but it should be basically same gameplay as vanilla), but nowadays I don't have HSFX 7 installed, so I have to figure out how to get updated on all my game and mod patches.

E.g. why T&B in an aircraft with poor visibility? You can do that with external views allowed and padlock allowed but not really in full real, at least so well. Likewise good visibility like P-51 mustang with its teardrop canopy is really nice.

You can feel happy about surviving sorties and getting points here and there in full real in my opinion. And you can use nice flight paths and tactics to try to sneak into enemy territory and fulfill your missions.

I do think that the aerial war of WW2 would have been rather more different, if the real pilots had stuff that is "semi-realistic settings"

You're basically talking about an F-22 with passive sensors all around your aircraft (external views)

airborne radar (enemy cameras)

enemy padlocks (basically radar warning receiver or radar)

[MaxGunz]

As a person who runs less than Perfect Graphics I can live with short, very limited icons, thank you.

[Woke Up Dead]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

I don't agree about gunnery. Not at all.

And if you check videos where WWII fighter pilots tell, getting into close fights was usually the last thing you want.

How about energy management? LOL!

We'll have to disagree on gunnery.

Exactly, getting into close fights is the last thing that pilots on more realistic servers want, so they don't do it often, so they're not good at it when they're forced to do it.

The better pilots on the easier-setting servers (not Fun4All) are very good at managing their energy. Some have been flying air war sims since before IL2. They prefer to fly on the easier-setting servers because they don't have the time or patience for the full-switch ones or because their friends fly there, not because they're not good.

[MaxGunz]

On servers where building your energy instead of flying furiously wasteful flat circles gets you kicked when you make an attack from higher energy, you don't learn ways to handle anything but staying slow and stupid. You can't learn a whole range of flying and gunnery then and you can't learn much about handling being bounced when the rules are set to kick anything but swirley-whirley cluster-forking.

[Woke Up Dead]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

On servers where building your energy instead of flying furiously wasteful flat circles gets you kicked when you make an attack from higher energy, you don't learn ways to handle anything but staying slow and stupid. You can't learn a whole range of flying and gunnery then and you can't learn much about handling being bounced when the rules are set to kick anything but swirley-whirley cluster-forking.

The only server that I know of that currently kicks for B&Z is Fun4All. All other servers that don't check all the realism boxes allow energy tactics and many of the experienced players there are very good at it.

[Pursuivant]

When practicing off-line, I find it handy to have unlimited ammo, arcade mode and external view with the ability to view enemy planes.

After a fast pass on an enemy, I pause the game and toggle to the enemy view, cycling through the various planes to view the enemy I've just attacked to get a sense of where and how my shots hit.

I also find external view of my own plane extremely helpful in assessing the weaknesses of the plane I'm flying and catching problems with the IL2 damage models.

For example, when I get killed, I pause the game, switch out to external mode and check the path of the bullet that killed me. That's helped me realize that most single-engine fighters in the game have a small gap between the forward cockpit firewall armor and the armor glass.

In any case, things like plane ID tags and padlocking corrects for the game's rendering limitations and for the limits of computer monitors.

I'd also point out that we're simulating the exploits of men who usually had 20/20 or better vision, excellent peripheral vision, and extremely good object recognition and reaction times. So, arguably things like padlocking, plane ID, etc. allows IL2 to model a "human factor" that most people (and probably most players of IL2) don't have.

Viewed in this light, it is no more unrealistic than allowing out-of-shape, middle-aged civilians to have the same resistance to g-forces and injury as a highly-trained and athletic 20 year old.