Il2 Battle of Stalingrad on Steam

[Nefaro]

In other news.. got my CH throttle in today.  So now I have the whole setup.  Should be able to bind everything I need in A-10C and BMS to the HOTAS now. Only cost me one kidney and my soul.  >:D

Murphy struck again though.  Been a bit ill since last night so I may miss any ROF multi-player bash tonight.  :'(  If there ends up being a 20+ server pop again, I may try anyway.   

[jomni]

Nefaro, which CH set are you using?

[Nefaro]

Nefaro, which CH set are you using?

CH Fighterstick



http://www.chproducts.com/Fighterstick-v13-d-722.html


CH Pro Throttle



http://www.chproducts.com/Pro-Throttle-v13-d-719.html


CH Rudder Pedals



http://www.chproducts.com/Rudder-Pedals-v13-p-179.html#2



Those are all deceptively larger than they look in the photos.  Superb precision and feel to them.  Especially the Fighterstick.  The centering spring isn't so strong that it gives you hand fatigue from holding it in one position for long periods but still works wonderfully.  Has a really long throw range and moves quite smoothly throughout.  Even has manual trim wheels on the base to adjust manually via the stick itself.

I could've just used the Fighterstick and the Rudder Pedals and been quite happy with my setup since there's a throttle wheel on the stick base.  But the Throttle has even more buttons ... and a mini-joystick for moving the radar gates and IR pods on the modern sims.

My only complaints would be that the Throttle base can slide a bit on my desk, from initial testing, if I don't apply a little down pressure when moving it.  It may just need to be broke in a bit. 

Another is the topmost red button and 8-way hat switch on the Fighterstick.  Even with my large hands, it can be difficult to reach those quickly without shifting my mitts upward.  With the large array of button/switch options, it's not that big of a deal.  I'll use those for the more rare commands I may need on my HOTAS. 

Lastly, the cups on the bottom of the rudder pedals are in the way. They wouldn't be an issue if my shoe size was smaller, but my size 13s tend to inadvertently push the toe brakes in at the top when resting on them normally.  So I put some foam in that part in order to rest my feet lower on them without the cups pushing into my foot.  I suspect I'd have the same issue with most rudder pedal sets except the most expensive kind with just bars.

I went a but nuts, dropping a few hundred dollars on all these, but it has made a huge improvement in my flight simming experience.  I had asked around which HOTAS system people would recommend, and CH got some noticeable mention.  I wasn't let down.  Going from an inexpensive Thrustmaster HOTAS to this was a massive leap.  Far better than the X45 I had years ago too.  Between my new toys and the TrackIR 5 I already had, I'm in sim heaven. 

[jomni]

Ah the "F-16 set". Good choice. :)

[Nefaro]

Ah the "F-16 set". Good choice. :)

Yep.  Planned for all occasions.  :)

[JudgeDredd]

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?

Come come now Nefaro. If they left the "Early Access" label on, they couldn't mug people for £40 

[Toonces]

I've been using the same CH setup for about 9 years now.  It's good gear- you will get a lot of use out of it!   

[Nefaro]

I've been using the same CH setup for about 9 years now.  It's good gear- you will get a lot of use out of it!   

It also came with the reputation for not wearing out very quickly.   O0

I've not flown a CPU in a couple days.  Been trying to kick some damn plague.     Mostly bed- and couch-ridden so just been at some EU4 Ironman as Poland on the laptop, in between rest.  But I'm itching to fly some plastic again ASAP.  Whether it's in ROF or even BOS. 

Since the weekend's coming up, hopefully one of the ROF realism servers will be hopping.  I wouldn't mind playing on one of the lesser realism servers but most of those are just "Air Quake" dogfights over a single spot IIRC, which isn't all that enticing.  If that's dead, I may start getting used to the BOS engine management.  Been putting that off, especially since the extra BOS server tools won't be out for another month or two.

Will eventually start considering re-learning Falcon 4 (BMS) again, now that I have plenty of HOTAS thingamabobs.

[Father Ted]

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?

Come come now Nefaro. If they left the "Early Access" label on, they couldn't mug people for £40 

And yet people complain when the devs stop developing their released games?

[Father Ted]

CH Fighterstick...Even has manual trim wheels on the base to adjust manually via the stick itself.

I believe those are to adjust the stick - you can't map to them to game controls.

[Nefaro]

CH Fighterstick...Even has manual trim wheels on the base to adjust manually via the stick itself.

I believe those are to adjust the stick - you can't map to them to game controls.

Yes, exactly.  You can manually adjust the trim via the hardware itself.  No need to map them to anything, they just work.

[Yskonyn]

Nefaro, you adjust the deflection of the stick with those wheel. It makes the stick lean more towards a side, changing its 0-point.
Its like constantly pushing a little against it to keep the nose level, for example.
But this isn't going to trim the aircraft. Its just going to limit your control range.
Its fairly realistic for WW2 aircraft (WW1 aircraft mostly had no trim system at All), but not for the modern aircraft, at least not for the pitch channel anyway. Because a trim tab on the elevator deflects to negate control forces on the elevator, whereas your wheel deflects the whole elevator.
This might result in control issues with larger trim settings.

Bottomline, if the sim has trim Controls you can assign, use those instead of the wheels.
And if you are going to get back into Falcon again, avoid those wheels at all cost. The Falcon has a completely electronic fly-by-wire flight control system where the stick does not move when you trim the aircraft.
So if you use the wheels to trim it, you will severely hamper your controllability by limiting your trow in the direction of the trim.

[Father Ted]

Because a trim tab on the elevator deflects to negate control forces on the elevator, whereas your wheel deflects the whole elevator.

Slightly OT, but has anyone noticed if BoS has trim tabs?  I say this because in IL2 46, using trim controls does deflect the whole control surface (visually at least).

[Yskonyn]

That's why I said its fairly realistic as a one stop shop solution for WW2 sims, as not all aircraft had trim tabs yet. :) Spitfire is one that had tabs. As had most German planes, but I am not sure about the Russian aircraft.

And even on aircraft with trim tabs you could argue that using the trimwheels on the stick is still a viable option, because airspeeds in that Era were not going to be a limiting factor for aerodynamics until later on in the war (P-51 and Me262).

Whether this is simulated visually in the sim is another matter of course.

[Nefaro]

Actually, I don't plan on using those unless I don't have trim and feel the need to use it.  Which would be the case in ROF, even though I've not done so yet. 

Instead, I've offset the pitch control curve in the settings about 13-14% downward and into across into the negative area, giving up some of the forward stick pressure sensitivity in exchange.  Not the most ideal situation, but hopefully I don't have to push the stick more than halfway forward for much, especially on all the inline engines which have no fuel injection.

Gotta group ROF fly-in happening this afternoon with a couple guys at around 2000 UTC (that's 2:00 PM Central Time, here) this afternoon so if you guys feel like joining, I think we're gonna fly some Brit planes.  No comms, just wing waggles and flares for the sake of immersion.  :) 

Most of us aren't old hands at ROF, and it's as much an attempt at a historical experience as "Air Quake", but one of them records the outing, puts it up on YouTube and we kinda debrief on his fledgling forum created for this purpose.  The last one was just myself, Dukely, Zebra, and Tailmange patrolling around in a somewhat loose formation for awhile and then strafing a train (near an enemy city!).  The crazy archie fire killed one and forced the other three down (one of those - me - became a POW).  Not exactly a success.  ;D

Edit:  Will be Syndicate server first, since it has some Co-op capability.  After that flight is done, I may stay or switch to Wargrounds if that server is jumping this afternoon.  Usually on ROF as "Nefaro" but "Phillip Payne" is my RFC alter ego for our Entente flight today.