Il2 Battle of Stalingrad on Steam

[Toonces]

This game will be in the bargain bin inside of 6 months.  I'd wait on any expensive purchases, unless you really, really want them or are feeling particularly altruistic towards the developers.   ???

[Nefaro]

The 109 has pitch trim, in the key controls it's called stabilizer.  It works for both 109s and the 190, you have to map it separate to the generic trim controls.

Yeah, I had already set that to the same as my pitch trim switch.  The "pitch trim" works for Russian aircraft but not for the "German stabilizer" trim.  One of the Stabilizer trim sets of commands didn't work at all.  So I switched the buttons to the incremental "throttle" type one (that has two commands in the same entry, + and -).  It works now although it's very sensitive since I had to use the throttle one to get it to work.

I was talking about roll, however.  I don't think many planes had it back then but it's handy when they do.  The leftward roll seems particularly strong in the 109s.


On another note, I just spent my whole evening flying ROF multi-player on the Wargrounds server.  What a blast.  I'm ultimately hoping BOS gets the same post-release attention and additions that ROF has had.  But with 1C, I doubt it will.  I read some dev remark on either their forum or the Steam forums.  I got the impression that other than the few already promised tools to be released, they were going to leave it and start creating a new standalone sim again.  Le sigh.

[JudgeDredd]

Still way too expensive to entice me given what I perceive to be it's huge shortcomings from my pov.

Maybe in a sale...never say never.

[Nefaro]

Still way too expensive to entice me given what I perceive to be it's huge shortcomings from my pov.

Maybe in a sale...never say never.

I agree it's rather over-priced for the content.  Especially the release day DLC.  It's a love-hate relationship for me.  I grabbed it because I thought the Multi-player might be fun.  But I've ended up going back to ROF MP whenever there are people on the right server.  Was about 22 on Wargrounds earlier, so I hit the jackpot after not seeing hardly anyone there for the past week.  I guess they started coming down from the BOS sugar buzz. 

Somebody even mentioned they came to play ROF because the BOS realism server was pretty much dead tonight.  That may not be a good sign.  They better get the editor and other stuff out soon.  BOS really is fun to fly.  Kinda like DCS, I suppose.  Although it's probably easier to find a BOS server with more than two people in it right now.

[Yskonyn]

DCS lends itself much more to closed virtual squadron servers rather than airquake servers, so that is what you see as a result.
There is quite some MP activity in DCS, but its not visible, similar to what we do at SB Pro with Dogs of War.

IL2 has always seen a lot of furball servers online with various realism settings . Its a much different approach. Where its All about bragging rights and endless discussion about how aircraft a is superior to b and how this and that should be changed in the flight model. :)

[JudgeDredd]

DCS lends itself much more to closed virtual squadron servers rather than airquake servers, so that is what you see as a result.
There is quite some MP activity in DCS, but its not visible, similar to what we do at SB Pro with Dogs of War.

IL2 has always seen a lot of furball servers online with various realism settings . Its a much different approach. Where its All about bragging rights and endless discussion about how aircraft a is superior to b and how this and that should be changed in the flight model. :)

I much prefer those kinds of servers anyway - less KJ's about. Though I always find it a problem to be pro-active in joining one! Which means I never get online - aaahhh...the irony! 

But I definitely don't really like the jump in a fight with anyone rubbish. Very similar thing with online FPS play. I used to hate the shoot fest of CoD and yet loved BF as a "tournament" game with co-op play and sound tactics (not realism obviously...but working together as  a squad "tactics")

As I say though - I seldom look around for squads to join or air squadrons to join and therefore seldom play online. Steel Beasts and Dogs of War is the exception nowadays and that's because ASID was actively recruiting (or at least promoting) the game. I've always preferred co-op to adversary though.

[Nefaro]

I'd rather just jump straight into MP without spending a lot of time pre-planning to do just that.

So I guess you might call that "Air Quake" but there are still differences depending on the server mission.  If it has just one or two airfields up close to each other, with what amounts to a small focused conflict area right in the middle, then it could definitely be called Air Quake.

But if it has multiple goals spread out around the map, and multiple ways needed to achieve them all for a side win, then that's MP gold.  Doesn't require sitting around waiting for long periods of time waiting on people and planning beforehand, but still demands teamwork and some small degree of coordination once you're in the game.  I'd rather jump straight in with minimal fuss and have fun. 

That's why I spent hours flying ROF multi-player last night.  Even though I'd only spot a target and attack (or get attacked) once in awhile, it was still immensely enjoyable sneaking around to do such things and taking in the experience.  And paranoia.  Even had an impromptu flight grouped up for a bit.  Flew ground attack in a Breguet hunting Hun trains, took Photo Recon pics in a Bristol F2b, and shot a couple people down in a Sopwith Camel.  Lotsa variety without thumb twiddling.  Just requires a populated server. 

[Father Ted]

I think BoS MP got a lot of bad press simply because people didn't seem to get the idea that it was a testing ground.  The devs hadn't set out to produce a fun game - they just wanted to know if it would all work.  Now of course we should hope to see improvements in the actual gameplay.  The Syndicate guys produced something worthwhile by all accounts.

As to RoF, your experiences mirror mine, Nefaro.  I think that what I love about it is the unscripted nature.  As you say you can fly for ages and not see anything, and it's not boring because of the paranoia.  Then suddenly you're embroiled in a furball  - it's breathless action for a few seconds and abruptly the sky empties once more. It really feels like the way it's described in the books.

[Nefaro]

As to RoF, your experiences mirror mine, Nefaro.  I think that what I love about it is the unscripted nature.  As you say you can fly for ages and not see anything, and it's not boring because of the paranoia.  Then suddenly you're embroiled in a furball  - it's breathless action for a few seconds and abruptly the sky empties once more. It really feels like the way it's described in the books.

Heh.  I actually put my Camel into a spin yesterday, when I glanced back to see a German Halberstadt 2-seater right behind me, preparing to deliver a sneaky kill shot.  Yanked so hard she went into a nasty spin.  Normally ideal in most aircraft, but a rightward spin can be unpleasant in the Camel.  Then I nearly righted her but saw the Hun was on top of me again and accidently put it directly into another spin.  This time I didn't recover before hitting the ground. 

Gave me a good scare.  :o


Got some payback later on, with a couple kills. 

[Tuna]

As to RoF, your experiences mirror mine, Nefaro.  I think that what I love about it is the unscripted nature.  As you say you can fly for ages and not see anything, and it's not boring because of the paranoia.  Then suddenly you're embroiled in a furball  - it's breathless action for a few seconds and abruptly the sky empties once more. It really feels like the way it's described in the books.

Heh.  I actually put my Camel into a spin yesterday, when I glanced back to see a German Halberstadt 2-seater right behind me, preparing to deliver a sneaky kill shot.  Yanked so hard she went into a nasty spin.  Normally ideal in most aircraft, but a rightward spin can be unpleasant in the Camel.  Then I nearly righted her but saw the Hun was on top of me again and accidently put it directly into another spin.  This time I didn't recover before hitting the ground. 

Gave me a good scare.  :o


Got some payback later on, with a couple kills.

Lol, all your ROF talk makes me want to join you!

[JudgeDredd]

Tuna - where the hell have you been hiding? Are you spreading the love elsewhere?  :-*

[Nefaro]

As to RoF, your experiences mirror mine, Nefaro.  I think that what I love about it is the unscripted nature.  As you say you can fly for ages and not see anything, and it's not boring because of the paranoia.  Then suddenly you're embroiled in a furball  - it's breathless action for a few seconds and abruptly the sky empties once more. It really feels like the way it's described in the books.

Heh.  I actually put my Camel into a spin yesterday, when I glanced back to see a German Halberstadt 2-seater right behind me, preparing to deliver a sneaky kill shot.  Yanked so hard she went into a nasty spin.  Normally ideal in most aircraft, but a rightward spin can be unpleasant in the Camel.  Then I nearly righted her but saw the Hun was on top of me again and accidently put it directly into another spin.  This time I didn't recover before hitting the ground. 

Gave me a good scare.  :o


Got some payback later on, with a couple kills.

Lol, all your ROF talk makes me want to join you!

I overhead some clan players mention they were gonna be back Wednesday, so there may be a well populated server again later tonight.  Presumably 'New Wings - Wargrounds' again.

[magnus]

 Besides the grinding and other BS, how is the single player game?

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

It's shallow.  The campaign is broken up into 5 chapters that supposedly reflect different stages of the battle.  The only differences between the chapters are the location of the front lines and airfields.  You also have to unlock airfields but there's no real point as you can spawn any of your chosen nation's plane from any field.  Missions are randomly generated and aren't bad but they do get pretty repetitive as there isn't enough variety between waypoints or objectives.  The AI isn't bad at air-to-air but air to ground is broken as are radio commands.  Your wingmen don't follow orders very well at all.

[Nefaro]

It's shallow.  The campaign is broken up into 5 chapters that supposedly reflect different stages of the battle.  The only differences between the chapters are the location of the front lines and airfields.  You also have to unlock airfields but there's no real point as you can spawn any of your chosen nation's plane from any field.  Missions are randomly generated and aren't bad but they do get pretty repetitive as there isn't enough variety between waypoints or objectives.  The AI isn't bad at air-to-air but air to ground is broken as are radio commands.  Your wingmen don't follow orders very well at all.

Good overview of BOS single-player's current situation.

The random mission generator suffers from similar symptoms as the one in ROF.  There is only a few mission routes chosen from randomly at each airfield, and enemy flights will just spawn into the sim while you're flying near certain points.  Admittedly, they spawn in beyond visual range but you can still tell because when their spawn "roll" succeeds, they tend to pop up in the same few areas of the mission legs like clockwork.  I think the spawning in the ROF campaign was better, actually, but maybe that's due to there being more variety available to feed into it.

I saw some dev screenshots of some new on-screen command prompts that they're gonna release in the near future.  This still strikes me as an unfinished sim due to things like your wingmen not following orders, always rushing off to do whatever they want, and their plans to add such a system.  Presumably making the commands actually work while they're doing so.  Along with the editor(s), dedicated server options, and other stuff they're promising, it's obvious that this BOS is still in development.  Maybe they should've left the 'Early Access' label on it awhile longer?