The P51 in IL2 4.11.1 ... tastes like cardboard

[ZQuickSilverZ]

The flip side is there are not a lot of developers interested in flight sims. One reason is lack of a high profit margin comparative to other genres. The other is your customer is never happy with your work. The sim market for a developer is like a constant slap in the face that never ends.

[reschke]

Absolutely which is why we will just have to agree to disagree over my statement about CLoD being a turd. It is my opinion that the money I have spent on CLoD was wasted on a project that should have been finished years ago but for whatever reason never got to the point that was promised. I should have realized my error prior to purchasing but I like to support developers because they are few and far between. However I should have held on to my money and waited till CLoD made it to GOG.com before buying it.

[skouras]

you should try this

http://simhq.com/_air14/air_524a.html

 

 

it changes the game a lot

[Nate--IRL--]

The flip side is there are not a lot of developers interested in flight sims. One reason is lack of a high profit margin comparative to other genres. The other is your customer is never happy with your work. The sim market for a developer is like a constant slap in the face that never ends.

 

It does appear like that at times - you have to wonder why they bother at all - much more money could be made from making generic FPSs, with far less hassle.

 

Nate

[leafer]

Let's hope ED stay confined in their dungeon and doesn't see Nate's comment...

[Bearcat]

You can make fun all you want, but let's honest. IL-2 cannot be compared to DCS - it's a whole new era. One must acknowledge though, that Oleg's work was a milestone in sim gaming - the amount of planes, realistic engine management, ballistics... that was something back in the day.

 

As far as flight models go, I still think IL-2 is pretty descent. Bearing in mind how much work went into it over the years to make every whining fanboy happy with his favourite 109 or Spit and the forum battles over which FM is "porked", I think the devs made a pretty solid job.

 

ED is in a very comfortable position with DCS. With the modern planes, fans probably would find it hard to prove something is wrong due to problems with obtaining proper documentation. And as for the Mustang, ED can always say: "Unless you happen to own a P-51 and fly it, shut up!"

 

I agree... In some ways it is like comparing a walkman to an IPOD ... The comparisons will be made of course .. and personally I think that is more a testament to the greatness of IL2.. There was a time when from a pure sim standpoint regardless to what some FA & AH guys may say ... IL2 was as good as it got... as flawed as it may have been.. but it is over a decade old and therefore the comparisons are largely moot. One would expect a product that was released in 2012 to be much better than one released in 2001 .. I think better, and fairer comparisons could be made between Wings of Prey and Cliffs of Dover and DCS.

 

I think that the DCS P-51.. which is the only DCS AC that I have done more than a cursory flight in and also the only one whose FM I can actually compare through multiple sims ... is the finest model of the aircraft made to date.. but none of that can take away what 1C did for the genre with IL2.. I don't know where DCS plans to go with this .. I don't think we will ever see the varied planeset that we see in IL2 here in DCS .. which is fine with me.. I'd be happy with a dozen or so give or taker a few WWII era aircraft modeled this way ...

 

 

One must understand how IL-2 works. This is not a "how it feels" game. More of a "numbers say this" game. The original IL-2 (first release not FB) was quite well made, everything seemed to work according to what you might have expected and a 190 would pretty much always own those damned Lavochkins. Stuff got messed up with Forgotten Battles and Pacific Fighters (the latter one being not actually Oleg's projects, but Luthier's - the guy responsible for CloD).

 

Now the main problem is, that the initial game took only some basic numbers (weight, wingspan, engine power, etc) and calculated the FM somehow - I'm not really sure about how it was, just repeating what some people refered to as common knowledge. After jets and more complicated planes got in the game, each FM was specific for the aircraft. Initially some planes would defy the laws of physics (190, full rudder, yanking stick back did not result in a flip). Anyway, most of the stuff got fixed by now, but people are still complaining. I think it's the game engine's limitations that come into play (drag is a bit of an abstract concept in IL-2, prop pitch also is not exactly what it is, only the recent patch did proper stuff to overheating). I could go on and on, played this for years, mostly offline, but I am more or less familiar with the FM battles on forums. I think with such an amount of planes and people ranting, it's now impossible to make the FMs how they should be. Last changes to the 190 made it a no drag plane and it turns out, the drag for the FWs is mostly from the prop. The Corsair also got slowed down to match what the charts said and all was fine till people discover it was too slow to take off at times. Anyway, there is a ton of stuff that can be said, but the reason Oleg did not listen is probably because many people contacted him saying they are pilots and this and that is wrong and it wasn't possible to make everyone happy. Now Team Daidalos do the patches and it's a great job they are doing (like the AI, finally!), they seem to listen, though I wouldn't expect IL-2 will ever feel a bit like the real thing.

 

One thing has to be said - it was the first WWII sim, that actually showed how hard and complicated flying the planes of that time was, not to mention fighting. Suddenly, it wasn't about making Ace, it was about getting back home in one piece. The game is old and dated now, but still fun to play and easy to get into (the easiest, "serious" sim I'd say). It's simply one of the best sims ever made and will always be.

 

Just one more thing on the FMs, the whole wrong feel, wrong performance thing in game is very subjective as well as it is subjective in real life. You'll find a dozen WWII survivors who will say that P-40, P-51, P-whatever was the best plane because they found it a good machine to fly by their subjective standards. But it also may be so, that 100 guys laying dead in the dirt would curse the plane because it got them killed. Same goes for every other side of the conflict, Russians praise their Lavochkins (somehow the did not mind 20 levers to operate the engine and a +50C temp in the cockpit) and as I'm Polish, I should feel obligated to say: take a hike, the best planes of WWII were the P11c and the Los bomber. Once you look past your expectations on a given plane, and start to play the game and try to fly well with what you have, it's tons of fun. Cheers all!

 

I couldn't agree more.. and that was one of the things that made IL2 so unique at it's height.. Before the mods came out for better or worse.. you had to learn to fly what you had .. not what the historical stats said you were supposed to have.. and it was challenging to do so.

 

 

The original IL2 fm isn't that great either. For example, taking off in IL2 whether light or armed to the teeth, flap or no flap, takes the same amount of seconds and lifting off at the exact same spot on the runway every time.

Something's wrong there.

 

It definitely had it's flaws for sure.. but it was still a good piece.. and I think that FB changed that because I had to use a lot more runway in a fully loaded P-47 with rockets and bombs than I did in one with just extra ammo .. The same can be said for taking off from a carrier as well... I understand what teapot is saying .. that s the same thing that happened to me when I first tried IL2 from CFS 1 .. and when the first Mustang was released in FB .. the one that came in a patch.. it was miles ahead of anything in CFS even the 1% planes I think they were called... Nothing can take away what IL2 has done and it can even still be argued that pound for pound it is still at this point in time the best WWII sim on the market.. but there is absolutely no doubt that the DCS Mustang has raised the bar to an entirely different level, one that will be hard to compete with.. I think that even if they come out with a handfull of planes.. every WWII sim on the market today will have to be looking over their shoulder.. I never was into jets but I know a lot of guys who are and they all thought that FC was even better than Falcon as far as modern AC go.. and let's face it .. there aren't a lot of helo sims out anyway so there is no competition on that front either for DCS.

[mmaruda]

I haven't played DCS Mustang yet, but comparing it to Cliffs of Dover is pointless. I just recently got Cliffs and after finally coming to terms with it, setting everything up and accepting how ugly it looks (na AA, awfull colors, dated looking houses and trees, crappy feel of the cities etc.), I see the same old game. Not everything in the pit is clickable, and you'll want to set it to the HOTAS anyway, there is a diagram that shows the throttle, mixture and pitch setting, so the whole ability to click anything feels more like a gimmick, than an essential part of the sim.

 

One thing about the whole DCS Mustang is great and IL-2 feels bad. In DCS there is no machines to compare to the P-51. Right now everyone loves it, but if DCS FW-190 ever comes out (and when it does, I'm all shut up an take my money!), people might find that the Pony is crap against it. IL-2 has always had debatable FMs, but the legendary Allied planes like Mustang or Spitfire feel inferior to German machines in the game. Whenever discussions arise on the matter, there is always someone with hard historical data, that confirms that IL-2 has it right in most parts. That is why I'd really love to see more WWII planes in DCS and see how the legendary aircraft of the time compare in a sim with a different approach and more attention to detail.

 

Maybe the Lavochkins would finally be seen for what they were, when you have to use 5 levers to control you engine, and you have no radio to call for help. :D