Novice, what's the best way to learn.

[Stratman59]

I've had the sim a few weeks now having bought it as I'd heard that it's the best VR experience there is. That is in no doubt IMO. The thing is I don't get a huge amount of free time what with work and living in the 'real world'. There seems such a huge amount to take on board, all the different aircraft, bombing, rear gunner, navigating, air tactics. So far I've spent my time configuring my joystick and learning the basics, starting in flight with a Lagg-3 and just flying about, then flying one on one, gradually upping the Ai to average. Last night I did some landing and the ever so difficult 'taking off'.  I'm using the auto engine management as using the VR I just don't have enough buttons to map more than flaps, landing gear and trim controls, although I'd really like to do full engine management eventually.

 

I'm looking for the best advice to get me competent, should I start right from the off managing my own engine? Should I just pick one aircraft and learn it thoroughly? Play some single player scenarios of dive into the campaign. My goal is to go to multiplayer. I've found Chuck user guide which is brilliant. 

Edited August 20, 2017 by Stratman59

[Herne]

Its a difficult one to advise on. Part of me would say jump straight into the likes of WoL and do all of your learning there, I say this because you would be forced to learn about engine management, preferably taxiing to runway although some people don't. I guess campaign on expert mode would work too.

 

Now in VR I think it's pretty important you get your self some good peripherals. I use the saitek X55 and saitek combat peddles, which have served me well over multiple games for a few years, which have plenty of buttons, switches and dials, to do everything I need, but not everything in game. I started with things I needed for specific air frames then added them as I needed them.

 

I cannot recommend no matter what hotas you go with these mounts enough :- 

 

https://www.monstert...as-table-mount/

 

You will be able to adjust the height of the hotas to a stress free position, giving comfortable VR, or even track IR gameplay for many hours at a time.

 

Learning things the hard way may be a little frustrating at first. use the specification tab on the mission briefing to see what the instruments should read for max continuous / combat / emergency power, and use those settings rather than the technobabble which sometimes does not match. It is however so damn rewarding when things start to go right

 

and Good Luck, any problems feel free to ask, there's some very knowledgeable people here

[=EXPEND=Tripwire]

I would recommend flying firstly offline to get some confidence up in takeoff and landings and taxiing. You won't have the stress of being shot down or crashing into other pilots. Pick one aircraft to start with and then branch off to others once you have one plane you have familiarity with. Perhaps pick one that will be on the majority of servers. Lagg3 is a good choice to start on. Next, load up some QMB 1v1 fights and practice understanding how much you need to lead an aircraft to score hits. Lastly, if you haven't map some buttons required for basic engine management, the stuff you will need to not destroy your engine depending on your choice of plane.

 

Now here is the hard part. Straight into an expert server, or DED Normal. I would suggest that if this is your first experience with combat flight sims, give normal a try as you will at least not have any trouble finding your enemy and get some gunnery training against real pilots under your belt. You can disable some of the auto engine management with the right key combinations as well I believe.

 

Finally - load up Teamspeak, and join the expert server the others on your side are currently logged into. Most likely this will be Wings of Liberty. Say hello and then join the fight. Even if you are not so confident, listen to the others for vital information regarding enemy positions and you might even be able to come to the rescue of a teammate on comms under attack.

 

Most of all, don't give up. This game has a steep learning curve, but is very rewarding as you start to improve step by step. You will get shot down. A lot. But that first online victory, your heart will be pounding and your hands sweaty from the experience.

[unreasonable]

My advice would be to treat it - up to a point - as though you were actually learning to fly.  Although it is only a game and should be fun, it is also an in depth sim and it is so much more satisfying (or was for me at any rate) to get to grips with some of the complexities. 

 

Find a good basic book or online source on how aircraft work and read it.  

 

In the game, I do think you are better off mastering one aircraft type at least until you can take off and land without accident, and fly around without destroying your engine or stalling by accident.  I do think it is better to start with full engine management from the start. It is more to think about, true, but it is not that difficult and you will avoid some bad habits if you start as you intend to go on.

 

As for which one, unfortunately there is no plane in the game that really qualifies as a trainer, but I recommend the Spitfire. Fairly easy to take off and land, hard to stall, fun to fly. 

 

Then start some SP.  Prepare to die.

Edited August 20, 2017 by unreasonable

[Herne]

I started with the German Line up, all 109's and 190's have auto engine management except the 109 E7, where you just have to worry about radiators.

It can get a little confusing when as you try different aircraft you realise they have different cooling systems which can sometimes be mapped to the same axis or buttons to keep things simple. coolant radiators for example, radial engines tend to be air cooled so have a cowling open / close system, which is different from managing a water cooled system, which in turn is different from the multi step open close, on the bf110, and spitfire.

With the german fighters you can focus much more on your flying, and let the engines manage themselves, it wont be long though before you are hungry for more, and as you try different air frames you will marvel, at the attention to details that the devs have achieved in this sim, from how the aircraft handle on the ground and in the air, each having very unique characteristics, to the importance of looking after your engines, and nursing your damaged bird all the way home.

[xvii-Dietrich]

Pick one aircraft and stick with it. If you are constantly changing during the early-learning process, it will be confusing (and thus, frustrating).

 

High-performance or complex aircraft can be difficult to manage. Consider something simpler and slower when starting out. Again, less confusion, and also more time to react. It also means less keys/buttons to configure.

 

IL2:BoS doesn't have a pure trainer aircraft, so I'd recommend the Ju 87 Stuka to learn on. Slow, simple, tolerant and rugged. But also with a nice selection of ground attack weapons and forward-firing guns for some fun.

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

Although dated, here is another great read specifically for when you are ready for on-line servers.

 

http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/lento_ohjeet/inpursuit/inpursuit.pdf

[Jade_Monkey]

Sounds like you are doing the right thing. I do recommend learning an easy plane such as the Yak1, and feeling comfortabke with the takeoff and landing. After that, the rest of the planes will be very easy to fly.

 

Regarding the buttons, VR makes it nearly mandatory to get a HOTAS since you cant see the keyboard. I have the Saitek X55 and it works well with a plathora of buttons, sietches and axis. However its a bit poor in the construction quality department.

[=EXPEND=Tripwire]

 

 

Regarding the buttons, VR makes it nearly mandatory to get a HOTAS

 

Yep. Once again I failed reaching for the keyboard to push CTRL+R and hit CTRL+E instead. A nice external view of my perfectly good plane followed.

[Stratman59]

Good advice from all, thanks. At the moment it's going like this, in a Lagg V a 190 set as average skill, I get shot down 1out of 10, the other 9 I end up in a spin and crashing....a steep learning curve indeed but loving every moment. 

Edited August 20, 2017 by Stratman59

[Jade_Monkey]

I hope it's a 109 E7 at least.

 

The lagg3 is no competition for the F and G variants.

[Stratman59]

You know Jade Monkey, that was going to be my next post, am I simply on to a loser pitting certain aircraft against another? It was The 109F2 I was trying to compete with and no matter how I tried I could never get on it's tail and always ended up in a spin by over turning. One bonus is that I decided to spend a half hour climbing to altitude and intentionally stalling and thus practicing my recovery.   

 

 

Are there any tactics that could allow a less capable aircraft to compete against a superior one, given pilot skill being better in the lesser plane? 

[Royal_Flight]

I would have a think about what you want to do with your time in game and then stick to an appropriate type.

I'm a ground-pounder by trade and inclination, and a terrible fighter pilot so as a result I spend all my time in a peshka scraping over the trees deep behind the lines.

 

Choose something that appeals to you then start practicing. The LaGG isn't bad, the Yak wouldn't be a bad place to start either. I learned in an Il-2 as it's actually relatively benign, hard to stall and moves quite slowly so you have a lot of time to think about where you are while on approach or in a circuit.

 

Start with firing up the engine, taxi-info to the runway and then back, then takeoff, fly around the airfield and land. Once you've got that down start navigating to other airfields and then landing.

After that try some relevant techniques, e.g. as a fighter, some air combat manoeuvres against AI. Or as a strike a/c how to fly low in formation at speed, or as a close air support pilot how to put bombs and rockets on target under fire.

 

I'd recommend starting with VVS first as a lot of Russian a/c are more hands-on in terms of engine management, once you learn it it becomes second-nature. Rather than getting good at mostly automatic LW a/c and then having to go through another learning curve if you want to switch.

 

Then get into a multiplayer server and see what happens.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Stratman, it is definitely possible to win with technically inferior aircraft

 

It's a very lengthy topic but the brief of it is that most performance differences only decide the engagement once you let it take you to the wrong place at the wrong time. There actually isn't any aircraft in game that fully eclipses another in all parameters!

 

The LaGG-3's advantages and weaknesses complement the Bf-109: the LaGG-3 is heavy, accelerates badly, has good damage resistance, packs a strong punch, has good rear visibility and rolls very well. The Bf-109 is light, accelerates well, is weak to damage, has relatively weak armament, has poor damage visibility and rolls poorly (moreso at high speeds).

 

The easiest way to win a fight in any fighter is to arrive higher, faster or both. When that's not possible, use your advantages or force the enemy's disadvantages.

 

In the LaGG-3, you can use the Bf-109's bad visibility to sneak up and dish out ammunition from close range. The 109 pilot will usually attempt to stay fast and vertical, which worsens his roll rate and overall manoeuvrability. With your roll rate, you can bait him into following you into a turn, reverse to force an overshoot and reverse once more to get a good snapshot as he passes you. Lastly, when all goes bad you can gamble on the ShVAK and UBS armament combined with the aircraft's durability and go for the head-on pass as a last resort.

[Cpt_Cool]

I just want to add that it is not impossible to have engine management controls mapped to a keyboard with VR. I manage just fine (Finding the bumps on the F key to orient my hand).

[indiaciki]

All over again...

 

http://www.ppl-flight-training.com/circuits-briefing.html

[ShamrockOneFive]

Stratman, I think you're doing it right actually. Lots of other folks have some great suggestions too but I think you have the right idea. You started simple and small and you bit off a few pieces here and there. You don't have to have complete mastery of everything in the sim all at once.

 

I honestly can say that I've only really gotten into proper (and accurate) level bombing in the last 6 months. Up till that point I was just not focused on it. You learn the stuff you're most interested in doing first and then you gradually expand into the rest of it too.

 

The LaGG-3 is a good place to learn actually. Its good but not great and its slightly disadvantaged against the Bf109s in most respects (though not all as illustrated in previous threads). If you can do pretty well in this fighter and make it work for you... other types will be easier to master later on.

[BubiHUN]

When i bought BoS, I played dozens of hours in offline. First, i watched tutorial videos about taxiing, taking off, landing etc. I remember very well, when i started to practice how to take off with a 109, I failed and failed during a night. When i finally managed to get my crate in the air, i noticed the sun was coming up soon.
If you cant do something properly, learn and practice practice practice.

[Guest deleted@30725]

When i bought BoS, I played dozens of hours in offline. First, i watched tutorial videos about taxiing, taking off, landing etc. I remember very well, when i started to practice how to take off with a 109, I failed and failed during a night. When i finally managed to get my crate in the air, i noticed the sun was coming up soon.

If you cant do something properly, learn and practice practice practice.

 

I agree. The only way to learn it is to spend hours infront of it - not all at once, but time will make him better and that's true for anything.

 

I don't play every day or even every month, but I've had the game since open beta and stuff like landing and taking off is automatic even after a long break. It's not perfect the first few times, but I can hop on take off, land and shoot something down without having to re-learn everything.

 

But it is worth reading or watching tutorials as once you get the guidance for the things you want to learn, that guidance translates to all planes and the basics turn out to be quite similar in most flight sims.

[[DBS]airdoc]

Hi and welcome to the IL2 community.

 

I would suggest that you take your time flying with the 109F4 (or better the G2) first. Remove the headrest and start flying single player 1v1 missions against inferior Soviet aircraft, like the LaGG. I would recommend that you only fly with realistic engine management, so that you develop good habits from the beginning. Also, leave help tips on, they can be useful for training purposes. With the 109 you won't have to worry about radiator, prop pitch, mixture or supercharger and is pretty much the best overall fighter in the game. You can practice landings to the closest airfield after each duel. 

 

By your post I presume that you are new to ww2 sims in general, not just IL2. So, if you don't know the basics of combat flying, the ebook posted above by stick-95 is excellent to get you started. Getting acquainted with the fundamentals of energy handling in dogfights is one of the most important concepts to grasp.

 

If you get to an expert online server don't be put off by how well you do initially. Remember that most of the guys there have been flying for years and team up. If you fly alone, you 'll probably keep getting shot down without even knowing where it came from. You 'll quickly start to appreciate the effectiveness of fighting in pairs, the importance of speed and altitude, and above all, the significance of spotting the enemy first. At full-real, VR is a disadvantage, because the visibility is a bit worse than in monitors (at least that's what I 've been told by guys who use VR). The best way to learn how to dogfight expert humans, is to join a TeamSpeak channel and communicate with others.

 

Also, be patient. It takes time. Especially for mastering the landings. Even guys who have thousands of hours don't get them right all the time. As we say, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.

 

cheers

Edited August 22, 2017 by [DBS]airdoc

[SAG]

 At full-real, VR is a disadvantage, because the visibility is a bit worse than in monitors (at least that's what I 've been told by guys who use VR). The best way to learn how to dogfight expert humans, is to join a TeamSpeak channel and communicate with others.

 

 

 

I thought it would be a disadvantage at first because of how hard it is to check your six but that just made me more careful to approach dangerous situations...

 

All in all i think i'm more competitive now. spotting is easier than in my 32 inch monitor but IDing is harder, accuracy is about 300% better (judging by WoL stats) and situational awareness is great. i'm not even talking about how immersive it is and it's still much better than a monitor for me. perhaps it's because of my young eyes? 

[JaffaCake]

All over again...

 

http://www.ppl-flight-training.com/circuits-briefing.html

 

 

The slowest and least efficient way to land in this game?  (Engine 0, max prop pitch, max flaps, gear out at 500kmph, side slip and pull out without a flare to be able to use brakes as soon as your wheels touch the ground)

Edited August 22, 2017 by JaffaCake

[[DBS]airdoc]

I thought it would be a disadvantage at first because of how hard it is to check your six but that just made me more careful to approach dangerous situations...

 

All in all i think i'm more competitive now. spotting is easier than in my 32 inch monitor but IDing is harder, accuracy is about 300% better (judging by WoL stats) and situational awareness is great. i'm not even talking about how immersive it is and it's still much better than a monitor for me. perhaps it's because of my young eyes? 

 

Maybe it works better for some people compared to others. I don't use VR so I 'm just quoting what others told me about it.

[=LD=Brazo]

22 hours ago, NoelGallagher said:

oasis doesn't exist anymore sadly 

i think you meant noel gallagher's songs recently 

and he changed his style back to where he were 

no more cosmic pop bullshit

check out the latest release of his song 

it's as good as his oasis days songs

the first time i saw DCS's plane price 

i thought they were insane 

it still looks like it 

i mean not as a judgement (because it's their product and they have all the right to put whatever the price they wanted to sell)

but i've never seen such a price for computer game

one plane for 80$ LOL

it still amaze me

I love IL-2 and I’ve just started trying DCS and I’ll say they both have a different and not directly comparable cost system. 
 

DCS can after all be played for free with a dodgy Russian Cold War Jet but I accept that one would want to lay down so me cash to improve their experience.

 

Overall Il-2 is definitely cheaper and offers far more content or bang per buck but the plane models and systems aboard planes are simply better in DCS. Whilst pricey a plane in DCS is often released and then developed for a further two years to improve/refine and add to. Graphically IL-2 is some way off DCS to be polite. 

 

Both have their advantages and disadvantages IL-2 is my fave but both have their place. 

[Dragon1-1]

Yeah, DCS is prettier if you've got the GPU performance, models most systems better and a clickable cockpit is nicer to operate in VR. However, Il-2 is much cheaper. DCS also has better learning resources, if you want hands-on training missions, there's a training variant of Mustang that you get for free, and it's got all the necessary training except for gunnery. 

 

Also, there's a DCS Corsair in the making if you like naval aviation.  Il-2 devs would love to do Pacific, but it appears it's gonna be a while before they get there...

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Wow, how did this thread get necro'd almost 4 years on?

[Dragon1-1]

Someone got told to use Google, so he did...

Edited June 29, 2021 by Dragon1-1