How to Unlock Stuff?

[Maico]

Hello fellow pilots,

 

Please don't throw rocks at me.  I have just started to gain interest in BoS again.  I have taken nearly a year break from sims.  BoM looks pretty sexy too.  How ever I cant figure out why is everything locked.  All aircraft options like extra weapons and such.  More than that, can someone tell me where to find this answer. 

  I spent sometime in the forums today and came up with nothing.

 

Thanks All

 

Maico

[Dakpilot]

Fly the single player campaign and unlock through missions/experience, check profile in main menu in game to see what each aircraft needs, or go to your user account (hit IL-2 banner at top of thread and login) then choose to select all unlocks if you want them available without using the "campaign"

 

Consider the SP campaign as beginner steps to learn the aircraft and unlock new weapons, if you have full version of game you can sidestep this 'unpopular' feature

 

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[No601_Swallow]

Firstly, as a "founder", you don't have to! You can just enable unlocks (or whatever it's called) on your profile page on this website!

 

However, this doesn't unlock funky skins. "custom skins" will be available, if you download and install them, but the official ones won't.

 

So, I would recommend embracing the dark side, exulting in the treadmill. Treat the "campaign" for what it is - a really good quick mission generator, that gives you loads of practice,  and - as your "pilot level" increases - more and more of a challenge!

 

Seriously, the campaign missions are very sophisticated (from a structural, mission building point of view, at least), and often thrilling and great fun! (Do it on "normal", and then you can cheat or turn off all the aids as and when you want to!)

 

Edit: Dakpilot beat me to it!

Edited May 1, 2015 by No601_Swallow

[Maico]

Thank You!!!! This is Exciting news. 

[No601_Swallow]

Maico, "other opinions" are available viz the campaign missions, but - never forget this - they're wrong and I'm right!     

[LLv24_Zami]

So, I would recommend embracing the dark side, exulting in the treadmill. Treat the "campaign" for what it is - a really good quick mission generator, that gives you loads of practice,  and - as your "pilot level" increases - more and more of a challenge!

 

Seriously, the campaign missions are very sophisticated (from a structural, mission building point of view, at least), and often thrilling and great fun! (Do it on "normal", and then you can cheat or turn off all the aids as and when you want to!)

 

 

Yep, I think the campaign missions are much better than they have been credited for. At least on later pilot and plane levels.

[LLv24_Zami]

Really? Nothing in this forum about unlocks?!

 

Some of the missions in the campaign are more 'efficient' than others in generating XP. Try to do bomber ones before your level gets too high, and then for fighters do ground attack if you suffer against the superAI.

 

I have left bombers last, have been flying Pe-2 a lot lately at level 9. No more difficult than fighters before IMO. Campaign mission difficulty depends on both pilot level and plane progress. And there is still variety between missions, some are more difficult and some are easy. As it should be. And I dont think AI is super, actually it is pretty good and fair compared to other flight sims.

[Bearcat]

Hello fellow pilots,

 

Please don't throw rocks at me.  I have just started to gain interest in BoS again.  I have taken nearly a year break from sims.  BoM looks pretty sexy too.  How ever I cant figure out why is everything locked.  All aircraft options like extra weapons and such.  More than that, can someone tell me where to find this answer. 

  I spent sometime in the forums today and came up with nothing.

 

Thanks All

 

Maico

 

Hey Maico.. How are you? Good to see you back. Are you still in the sand?

 

 

Fly the single player campaign and unlock through missions/experience, check profile in main menu in game to see what each aircraft needs, or go to your user account (hit IL-2 banner at top of thread and login) then choose to select all unlocks if you want them available without using the "campaign"

 

Consider the SP campaign as beginner steps to learn the aircraft and unlock new weapons, if you have full version of game you can sidestep this 'unpopular' feature

 

unlocks.JPG

 

Cheers Dakpilot

 

You will still have to unlock skins.. but yeah like Dak said.. you can get rid of the other unlocks with a mouse press.

[LLv24_Zami]

Its the he111 that I was thinking of really. I find it hard to hit the target, survive fighters and AA and then get to the exit point. The stuka was tricky too but easier to hit the target and sometimes there seemed to be no fighters attacking.

 

The super AI I refer to is perhaps just more apparent when outnumbered in the campaign when you HAVE to down one plane to get points. I can survive reasonably well in a 6 vs 6 quick mission for example. But me and a wingman trying to fend off 4 escort AI who seem to fly impeccably with regards to energy and I can't lose in clouds or the sun is difficult.

 

 

He-111 is the only plane atm that I haven`t been playing in campaign so I take your word for it. Have to try it, as I said Pe-2 was reasonable easy. Level bombing itself was the trickiest part for me.

 

It is difficult to complete mission when you are badly outnumbered, I agree. Just have to try hit&run tactics. Fortunately there is variation between missions so next one is probably easier.

 

 

PS I am aware I'm a rubbish pilot as well which doesn't help

 

Welcome to the club!

[Sokol1]

If you are interesting in play only for unlock these skins (like the ones for Hungary or Mediterranean...  ) :

 

-Do only short missions (air start/end on air) - in the time need to do a long mission you do two short and get similar points, and if fail in the last part lost less time.

-If like bombers, unclock these first, became complicated in last phases (The 'Campaign" and unlocks are not properly interrelated, one will end first).

-Do only ground attack missions, skipping other types, skip too attack artillery with bombers, make no sense try hit 4 small targets from 2000 meters, specially at night...

-Don't follow strictly the mission waypoints, they lead you to FLAK traps - if the route goes over a airfield, make a deviation.

-Play only for the "blessed" XP, when see the mission accomplished message, go "out of Dodge" and ignore the "war".

-On RTB fly low as possible, sometimes enemy planes ares spawned just ahead of you, in collision course, AI dont like fly very low - low mean  2/3 meters.

-Yes, is boring like a hell and you will fell fool playing this, but is designed as is, for "fun".

 

Playing a hour or two every day, in "two weeks®" you end this "war". 

 

The Lt. "AI Autopilot" is your friend. 

[SpaydCBR]

If you are interesting in play only for unlock these skins (like the ones for Hungary or Mediterranean...  ) :

 

-Do only short missions (air start/end on air) - in the time need to do a long mission you do two short and get similar points, and if fail in the last part lost less time.

-If like bombers, unclock these first, became complicated in last phases (The 'Campaign" and unlocks are not properly interrelated, one will end first).

-Do only ground attack missions, skipping other types, skip too attack artillery with bombers, make no sense try hit 4 small targets from 2000 meters, specially at night...

-Don't follow strictly the mission waypoints, they lead you to FLAK traps - if the route goes over a airfield, make a deviation.

-Play only for the "blessed" XP, when see the mission accomplished message, go "out of Dodge" and ignore the "war".

-On RTB fly low as possible, sometimes enemy planes ares spawned just ahead of you, in collision course, AI dont like fly very low - low mean  2/3 meters.

-Yes, is boring like a hell and you will fell fool playing this, but is designed as is, for "fun".

 

Playing a hour or two every day, in "two weeks®" you end this "war". 

 

The Lt. "AI Autopilot" is your friend. 

This is pretty much all I did. It was pretty boring haha.

 

Also make use of the time speed up thing! Cuts down your flight time when going towards the objective and flying back!

[TG-55Panthercules]

Just be careful, though - I did the unlock grind on the "2x time + autopilot" method just before they provided the magic red unlock button, and I got so turned off on the total, mind-numbing stupidity of having to do that unlock mechanic in what I thought was going to be a flight sim that I got completely mentally burned out and haven't been able to generate any desire to fly BoS missions since.  I still fire it up occasionally to get some screenshots of my custom skins, and once after each patch/update to see if they've fixed the "bubble of blur" effect that destroys any ground attack flying for me (the part I like best about the IL-2 series), but then I put it back on the shelf and wait for the next patch.

 

I'm still hopeful they will eventually fix that blur issue (or give us customizable graphics options again so we can at least try to fix it ourselves) and that I'll eventually feel like flying BoS again (and later BoM, since I went ahead and sprang for it on faith), but I think I would have been better off psychologically to have skipped the whole unlock phase and just sat it out until they gave us the magic red button.  I still would have thought the unlocks were a bad idea, but I wouldn't have gotten burned out by having to plow through them uselessly like that.

[No601_Swallow]

It's probably worth repeating that it's only a "grind" if you choose to treat it as one. It's possible, in my experience, to treat the campaign missions as fun and challenging in themselves - far more so than the QMB.

 

If you choose the "short" version if each mission and use the autolevel (which is engaged when you spawn in) and 2x acceleration, you can be "in the action" within seconds - certainly 30 seconds. At that point, you can have fun, attack, break off, fail, limp away to safety, make it to the "exit point", continue on to land at the home base, etc, etc, etc, as you wish.

 

It's only a grind if you want it to be a grind. (Edit: I'll add that this is, of course, my own humble opinion. Panther, I'm sorry for your soul-destroying experience. I do think it was a big design error on the part of the devs to make it seem as if the campaign missions were "compulsory", something that people had to do. That was a big mistake.]

Edited May 2, 2015 by No601_Swallow

[TG-55Panthercules]

It's probably worth repeating that it's only a "grind" if you choose to treat it as one.

 

(Edit: I'll add that this is, of course, my own humble opinion. Panther, I'm sorry for your soul-destroying experience. I do think it was a big design error on the part of the devs to make it seem as if the campaign missions were "compulsory", something that people had to do. That was a big mistake.]

 

Yeah - the devs laid the trap and I fell right into it.  I was so pissed about the whole unlock concept and lack of any real historically-immersive career/campaign mode that I just wanted to get the unlocks over with ASAP so I could then get on to the "fun stuff" - but only afterwards did I realize that there was no other "fun stuff" (SP anyway) after the campaign at that point (although some player-created missions are looking pretty promising now).  And, by the time I tried flying the campaign again after the things were unlocked, I was already a "level 9" pilot who had learned nothing about how to fly the planes (other than how to press the keys so they would fly on autopilot at 2X time) and was consistently getting slaughtered as a complete noob by super-level AI.

 

I would have been much better off if I had just tried flying the campaign missions for fun, without even thinking about the unlocks being there, and I'd recommend that approach to anyone else starting out with BoS at this point.

[Sokol1]

It's probably worth repeating that it's only a "grind" if you choose to treat it as one. It's possible, in my experience, to treat the campaign missions as fun and challenging in themselves - far more so than the QMB.

 

 

I play this "campaign" just to see what is...

I have zero interest in Mediterranean or Hungary Skins (or in not proper historic for the period/location skins), zero interest in BK-37 cannon or 2000 KG bombs or any "what if" in Stalingrad loadout.

I hate WWII "what if" (I never play or will play Heinkil "Sea Leon - what if" style SP campaigns), thus have zero interest in "FW 190 over Stalingrad", so I don't play that "campaign" for grind, I play to see... and I still find the whole thing idiot. 

[SharpeXB]

There is actually a lot of action outside the action point of the campaign. It's not as dull as you might think. It's all in how much fun you want to have with it. Using 2x speed and autopilot is surprisingly not fun. If you want to earn points fast play on Expert without the autopilot and treat the missions like you would any other.

[Maico]

  Wow, What support!

  I came in here to say thanks to they two people who offered support.  Now I see all this added support. Great.  I unlocked the hardware with a stroke of the mouse as told.  I then started flying the campaign.  Lucky for me all I have done in the last few days is some ground interdiction with the 109 and 190.

Well, I had to fly the Lagg witch I did not like but it was ok.  I then got the hang of things and within 2 or three missions I was hooked.  I would have played more but the Moto GP was on.  The Stuka is a mean SOB for putting steel on target.  I got 2 artillery pieces with one bomb. 

  I used the "grind" part to learn how to navigate since this is my weakest pilot point.  I became familiar with the compass.  I don't mind droning along.  We are flying combat here.  NOT boring. 

  Good to see you Bear!  Glad you still here.  I am back in the sand again.  How excited are we about the P-40?    Its an E too.  ) 

 

Thank You all for your comments and advice.  I am heavy into DCS right now but I am tasting a little BoS and Liking it!  So I will practice, practice.

 

Good Day all!

 

Maico

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Head over to here for some user made missions. I have the mini campaign made by Juri and it is very good.

 

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/14893-missions-sharing-corner/

[Bearcat]

  Wow, What support!

  I came in here to say thanks to they two people who offered support.  Now I see all this added support. Great.  I unlocked the hardware with a stroke of the mouse as told.  I then started flying the campaign.  Lucky for me all I have done in the last few days is some ground interdiction with the 109 and 190.

Well, I had to fly the Lagg witch I did not like but it was ok.  I then got the hang of things and within 2 or three missions I was hooked.  I would have played more but the Moto GP was on.  The Stuka is a mean SOB for putting steel on target.  I got 2 artillery pieces with one bomb. 

  I used the "grind" part to learn how to navigate since this is my weakest pilot point.  I became familiar with the compass.  I don't mind droning along.  We are flying combat here.  NOT boring. 

  Good to see you Bear!  Glad you still here.  I am back in the sand again.  How excited are we about the P-40?    Its an E too.  ) 

 

Thank You all for your comments and advice.  I am heavy into DCS right now but I am tasting a little BoS and Liking it!  So I will practice, practice.

 

Good Day all!

Maico

 

We are very excited.... !

[Maico]

Once again I thank you all.  I have never had so much fun in BoS.  I tried to play online but the learning curve killed me.  I did not last 5 minutes... Ever!.  I love this sim but how could I support something I did not play?  Well, I am playing now and I am really into it.  These missions are never boring.  The flak traps and fighters into and from the target zone are obvious distractors to try and keep you from completing your objective.  The objective to every mission is... To Make it Home Alive.  It is not to do as much damage to the enemy as possible.  You only do what you can get away with. 

  I have however broken this rule and tried my luck.  This is the fun part.  I cant remember if it was "100 Missions North" or "When the Thunder Rolled".  The author talks about how a ground attack mission is like stealing hub caps.  Some of you older folks can relate to this...  You do what you can get away with...

Loving it! and cant wait for the P-40E.  Who knows, maybe someday we will have an Airacobra Muahaha!

 

Thanks for the support

 

Maico