Il2 Battle of Stalingrad on Steam

[sandman2575]

Release of BOS early access on Steam yesterday is news to me, at least.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/307960/

Is now the time to jump in?  Past time?  Hold off til official release - or ?

From the Groghead sim mavens -- would love to hear thoughts on comparisons with Cliffs of Dover and Warthunder.

[MengJiao]

Release of BOS early access on Steam yesterday is news to me, at least.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/307960/

Is now the time to jump in?  Past time?  Hold off til official release - or ?

From the Groghead sim mavens -- would love to hear thoughts on comparisons with Cliffs of Dover and Warthunder.

  Not as a mavin, but I've been telling myself: "Looks great!  I'll get it when it comes out on Steam."  So, I'll get it.  And if it works reasonably well, then DCS will go to the back burner for quite a while.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Flight models and damage models are in and pretty much solid.  All the promised planes are in now except the He-111.  They need to start working on fleshing out the game world and the single player campaign now.  As of now, you can set up quick mission encounters similar by clicking a mission location icon on the map similar to how you could in ROF.  Then you pick the number and type of planes to square off, select armaments, fuel, pilot skill, paint scheme, weather, time of day, etc.  online play currently consists of Air-Quake dogfight servers.

To be honest, I don't find myself playing it very much these days.  If something new gets added in an update (every few weeks), I'll quickly fire it up to check it out, but the lack of any sort of campaign structure or pilot stat tracking keeps me from getting more involved.

[Nefaro]

Flight models and damage models are in and pretty much solid.  All the promised planes are in now except the He-111.  They need to start working on the world and the campaign now.  As of now, you can set up quick mission encounters similar by clicking a map icon similar to how you could in ROF.  Then you pick the number and type of planes to square off, select armaments, fuel, pilot skill, paint scheme, weather, time of day, etc.  online okay currently consists of Air-Quake dogfight servers.

To be honest, I don't find myself playing it very much these days.  If something new gets added in an update (every few weeks), I'll quickly fire it up to check it out, but the lack of any sort of campaign structure or pilot stat tracking keeps me from getting more involved.

I got the impression from the dev statements quoted here & there that they weren't going to do much work on the world or campaign.  Pretty much hoping modders can create something out of it?  :-\

I hope that's not the case, but if it is.... BLEH.

[JC______]

Flight models and damage models are in and pretty much solid.  All the promised planes are in now except the He-111.  They need to start working on the world and the campaign now.  As of now, you can set up quick mission encounters similar by clicking a map icon similar to how you could in ROF.  Then you pick the number and type of planes to square off, select armaments, fuel, pilot skill, paint scheme, weather, time of day, etc.  online okay currently consists of Air-Quake dogfight servers.

To be honest, I don't find myself playing it very much these days.  If something new gets added in an update (every few weeks), I'll quickly fire it up to check it out, but the lack of any sort of campaign structure or pilot stat tracking keeps me from getting more involved.

Hi,

There are no ground units?

[Toonces]

I think the game looks fantastic. 

But, I'm holding off on this until I see where they're going with the final product.  I don't need another "DCS" type game that has an unfulfilling single player experience, and I'm stuck surfing 32-player MP lobbies looking for something fun to do.  Not for $100. 

I'm not saying it's a bad game...because I don't know how good it is.  But I'm not sure it's going to be the game I want to play in the end.

[Jarhead0331]

Not for $100. 

Its $54, dude.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Flight models and damage models are in and pretty much solid.  All the promised planes are in now except the He-111.  They need to start working on the world and the campaign now.  As of now, you can set up quick mission encounters similar by clicking a map icon similar to how you could in ROF.  Then you pick the number and type of planes to square off, select armaments, fuel, pilot skill, paint scheme, weather, time of day, etc.  online okay currently consists of Air-Quake dogfight servers.

To be honest, I don't find myself playing it very much these days.  If something new gets added in an update (every few weeks), I'll quickly fire it up to check it out, but the lack of any sort of campaign structure or pilot stat tracking keeps me from getting more involved.

Hi,

There are no ground units?

Yes, there are ground units.  You can select from artillery, armour, AAA, trains, and soft vehicles when you build a quick mission.  Watching the train cars fly off the tracks when you hit them with bombs or rockets is quite satisfying.

As for the SP campaign, I have no idea what the plans are.  They really haven't said much at all since that one announcement where they said it'd be "like Groundhog Day".  Definitely hasn't been their focus during updates though.

[JudgeDredd]

I think the game looks fantastic. 

But, I'm holding off on this until I see where they're going with the final product.  I don't need another "DCS" type game that has an unfulfilling single player experience, and I'm stuck surfing 32-player MP lobbies looking for something fun to do.  Not for $100. 

I'm not saying it's a bad game...because I don't know how good it is.  But I'm not sure it's going to be the game I want to play in the end.

I'm with you

I was burnt badly with CLoD.

[trek]

Got it early this afternoon. I've played around with it for a couple hours. On my PC in dogfights my turning speed is so slow I feel like I'm playing the old Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 4. My rig will play just about anything OK, but the optimization on this one seems like the early days of ROF. I have a feeling this game and the gradual improvements are going to be another long drawn out process that will go on for years.

So, why did I buy it? Hell, I don't really know! I'm even thinking of buying the FW-190 for another $19.99!  Maybe I just think the icon looks good on my desktop next to IL2-CLOD! I mean I've gotten so jaded about CLOD that I haven't even installed the Team Fusion mod I DL'd months ago!

I'm done with it for today, so, I'll just put the joystick away and finally spend a little time on Victory At Sea. Maybe tomorrow I'll get back into it. Sometimes the gaming life is hell!

[JC______]

Yes, there are ground units.  You can select from artillery, armour, AAA, trains, and soft vehicles when you build a quick mission.  Watching the train cars fly off the tracks when you hit them with bombs or rockets is quite satisfying.

Thanks.
Sold!

8)

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Got it early this afternoon. I've played around with it for a couple hours. On my PC in dogfights my turning speed is so slow I feel like I'm playing the old Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 4. My rig will play just about anything OK, but the optimization on this one seems like the early days of ROF. I have a feeling this game and the gradual improvements are going to be another long drawn out process that will go on for years.

So, why did I buy it? Hell, I don't really know! I'm even thinking of buying the FW-190 for another $19.99!  Maybe I just think the icon looks good on my desktop next to IL2-CLOD! I mean I've gotten so jaded about CLOD that I haven't even installed the Team Fusion mod I DL'd months ago!

I'm done with it for today, so, I'll just put the joystick away and finally spend a little time on Victory At Sea. Maybe tomorrow I'll get back into it. Sometimes the gaming life is hell!

I have no issues with overall game performance but I have noticed a few oddities. 

• It takes a second or two for skins to load so if you flip to different aircraft using external views, it will look a bit strange to see the skin suddenly change.
• My TrackIR5 sometimes gets a bit twitchy in this game, especially when I'm trying to look up.  Not good if I'm lagging in a turn fight and trying to keep eyes on the guy I'm trying to pull around on.  Doesn't happen in any other game.
• Force feedback is unreliable.  Sometimes it works properly, sometimes the stick starts to throw random, hard kicks at you.  When that happens, you have to go in and alter the sensitivity sliders to stop the kicking output.  Doing so kills all force feedback but allows the stick to retain return-to-centre tension.

[sandman2575]

"Key Features" lists "Robust Single-Player Campaign that features a challenging and innovative AI system" -- guess we'll see, but it sounds (?) like the single player experience will be a little more rewarding than Rise of Flight - ? Or maybe I'm just an optimist.

Re: Cliffs of Dover -- I understand why folks are still wary, given the debacle of the early days, but you can pick it up for $10 on Steam, and with a little patience install the Team Fusion patches to create for yourself a very satisfying, pretty deep WW2 flight simulator.  SP is lack-luster to be sure, but there is enough content to keep you occupied while you hone your skills for MP.  Team Fusion saved this game, and it's very much worth playing now if you have any interest in the genre.

Can't tell how much longer my will power will hold out on BOS.  $55 ain't cheap, but I'm just drooling over the visuals, and the word of mouth seems good enough to warrant picking up at this stage --

[Father Ted]

I concur with Sandman on CloD - for $10 you can't go wrong.  I have BoS and I would say if you're not a full-on enthusiast wait until the proper release.  First impressions count (see CloD comments in this thread) and it would be easy to be dissatisfied with the unfinished state of BoS

[Grim.Reaper]

Couple questions:

1)  Does this game require you to be logged into their servers to play, even offline like the original ROF game did?  Or can you completely play offline?

2)  For us novice flight simmers, what kind of options are built in to make flying easier?  Are there realism settings?

3)  Any real idea when the full game will release?  According to their write up they mention September, but without a campaign yet included, that seems a little ambitious.