Combat Box by Red Flight

[II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson]

Community about to get a lot smaller if the zoom issue for VR folks is not addressed.

[Alonzo]

Server is up and patched!

 

To celebrate the Yak-9 being added to the game, we are featuring Eastern Front maps with the Yak-9 in half our lineup this week, as well as on the Combat Box training server. If you want to fly the Yak-9, look out for the missions Crimean Offensive, Operation Paravane and Stalingrad Scramble. Also in the map pool this week are Mitchell's Men, The Rhineland Campaign and Crossing the Rhine. Yak-9 features on the map running right now, as well as the next two maps, so that's all Yaks all the time for the next ~6 hours or so.

[=TU=Cookie-Monster]

Can suggest to remove the handling tips instead of techno chat? cuz its spamming over the chat box.

 

[VR-DriftaholiC]

3 hours ago, II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson said:

Community about to get a lot smaller if the zoom issue for VR folks is not addressed.

 

I'm afraid to stir the pot by asking for Alt-Vis while MIGOTO is unavailable...?

[QB.Shallot]

@driftaholic something tells me the solution is not ruining the game experience for all parties involved, VR or not.

[Matthias_PDX]

PSA: Had a pilot friendly fire a comrade with his pistol next to me while we were starting up tonight. No FF warning that I could see. Odd. 

[III/JG52_Al-Azraq]

On 5/15/2020 at 11:05 PM, Talon_ said:

 

Most likely no. We want CB to be friendly to newbies and it's the opinion of the admin team that tech chat helps them to a pretty large degree.

 

Second to that, without tech chat you can trigger an engine death timer by being just a few RPMs too high. This seems overly "gamey" and not realistic, so until engine timers are reworked tech chat has to stay.

 

First of all, let me tell you that I love your server and it is pretty much the only one we fly. Thanks for it!

 

However, let me point out that the engine timer is triggered if you surpass that 1% RPM but it won't break your engine before you run out of fuel. Many pilots think that if they trigger the timer then it is 30 minutes of combat power (for German planes) no matter if the are at 63% (again, for German planes) or 80%. Well, it is not like that and timers will run way slower if you don't push it all the way to the Combat Power limit. Nevertheless, I agree with you that the engine timers are quite gamey and detrimental for the majority of planes as we have no clue when are they going to break and in general, we can push them less than we could do it with a simulated real damage.

 

Having said this, I respect your decision but I think it would be beneficial for new players learning to read the instruments and not the technochat as they would learn better how to manage the plane, the relationship between manifold pressure and RPM, and it is way more fun and realistic.

 

This is just my opinion and again, thanks for the server!

[VR-DriftaholiC]

 

3 hours ago, QB.Shallot said:

@driftaholic something tells me the solution is not ruining the game experience for all parties involved, VR or not.

You're right! Maybe, Alt-Vis should be a player side option so nobody is forced to use it! Matches the argument I got for Techno-Chat.

 

Except one thing I just learned. Unlike pre-patch Techno-Chat can't be turned off without hiding the HUD entirely so now I can't see the server announcements or chat.

Edited May 20, 2020 by driftaholic

[Blackhawk_FR]

15 hours ago, Alonzo said:

Server is up and patched!

 

To celebrate the Yak-9 being added to the game, we are featuring Eastern Front maps with the Yak-9 in half our lineup this week, as well as on the Combat Box training server. If you want to fly the Yak-9, look out for the missions Crimean Offensive, Operation Paravane and Stalingrad Scramble. Also in the map pool this week are Mitchell's Men, The Rhineland Campaign and Crossing the Rhine. Yak-9 features on the map running right now, as well as the next two maps, so that's all Yaks all the time for the next ~6 hours or so.

 

Hello Alonzo, 

 

That make me think: in your survey there was a question about east front scenarios. What was the result? Does Combat box will turn more to the east or stay like it is, mainly on west front? 

Thx. 

[Birdman]

19 minutes ago, JG300_Faucon said:

 

Hello Alonzo, 

 

That make me think: in your survey there was a question about east front scenarios. What was the result? Does Combat box will turn more to the east or stay like it is, mainly on west front? 

Thx. 

 Curious about this as well.

 

Also, will you share the results of the survey with the CB community ?

[=RvE=Windmills]

9 hours ago, III/JG52_Al-Azraq said:

 

First of all, let me tell you that I love your server and it is pretty much the only one we fly. Thanks for it!

 

However, let me point out that the engine timer is triggered if you surpass that 1% RPM but it won't break your engine before you run out of fuel. Many pilots think that if they trigger the timer then it is 30 minutes of combat power (for German planes) no matter if the are at 63% (again, for German planes) or 80%. Well, it is not like that and timers will run way slower if you don't push it all the way to the Combat Power limit. Nevertheless, I agree with you that the engine timers are quite gamey and detrimental for the majority of planes as we have no clue when are they going to break and in general, we can push them less than we could do it with a simulated real damage.

 

Having said this, I respect your decision but I think it would be beneficial for new players learning to read the instruments and not the technochat as they would learn better how to manage the plane, the relationship between manifold pressure and RPM, and it is way more fun and realistic.

 

This is just my opinion and again, thanks for the server!

 

Though you won't be cooling your engine down either.

 

So its unlikely, or impossible, to actually kill a 'cool' engine with a few percent too much. But if you have just been in combat and have been running your engine hard and now trying to cool down, you can easily kill it if you accidentally are just across the magic line.

 

Yeah I don't see how the game is playable in its current form without techno chat, there is zero feedback 'in sim' on the state of your engine until its already dying.

Edited May 20, 2020 by =RvE=Windmills

[Black-Witch]

As if the graphics changes didn't make spotting enemies enough of a "challenge" after the patch, it's now raining on the Kuban map....sigh.

 

Not going to be much fun for planes without artificial horizon, like most of the VVS planes, including the Yak-9's.

 

Operation Paravane.

 

 

16 hours ago, II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson said:

Community about to get a lot smaller if the zoom issue for VR folks is not addressed.

I have VR and I've never used the MigiMoto mod, so I'm not going anywhere else :)

Edited May 20, 2020 by Black-Witch

[Talon_]

20 minutes ago, Black-Witch said:

As if the graphics changes didn't make spotting enemies enough of a "challenge" after the patch, it's now raining on the Kuban map....sigh.

 

Not going to be much fun for planes without artificial horizon, like most of the VVS planes, including the Yak-9's.

 

Operation Paravane.

 

 

I have VR and I've never used the MigiMoto mod, so I'm not going anywhere else

 

Wait, where is the rain coming from? The sky is blue! @Alonzo

[Black-Witch]

Just now, Talon_ said:

 

Wait, where is the rain coming from? The sky is blue! @Alonzo

It looks blue but it's just overcast.

[Talon_]

Just now, Black-Witch said:

It looks blue but it's just overcast.

 

You don't have to tell me what overcast looks like, I'm from England! ?

[Hawk-2a]

3 minutes ago, Talon_ said:

You don't have to tell me what overcast looks like, I'm from England!

We could describe how the sun looks then ?

[squidboi]

Would love to play but moving mud is only fun for so long, and would like to be able to see when people are coming at me before they're in near pilot sniping distance... and I can't request the features I want without the devs locking thread. I will say this server had me hooked right on the IL2 MP community scene as good as I could have been, that is, until my level competitive playing field was deemed to be "cheat" and against the license agreement ? Glad to see the numbers in the server are still good though.

[Alonzo]

8 minutes ago, Talon_ said:

Wait, where is the rain coming from? The sky is blue! @Alonzo

 

That's probably Paravane on the "alt" setting, high overcast, looks foggy, gentle rain below it. I'll make sure to edit things back to nicer weather, inevitably on a new patch everyone goes bananas about the spotting and anything other than light cloud causes complaints. I also noticed that my favorite clouds -- the heavy, double layer ones -- are a bit of a pig on VR performance.

[Talon_]

9 minutes ago, H_Stiglitz said:

We could describe how the sun looks then ?

The what?

[RedKestrel]

2 minutes ago, Talon_ said:

The what?

Some made-up contintental BS, I'm told.
 

[Alonzo]

Thank you to everyone who took part in our annual pilot survey. Here are the results.

 

To be clear, the admin team uses these as input, not as exclusive direction-setting guidance from the community. I think there's interesting data in here, and it's helpful. We're publishing for full transparency.

 

Also, I think it's quite funny that everyone wanted better multiplayer performance, and the developers just gave us that yesterday. So at least one wish granted for the CB player base.

cb-survey-2020-results.zip

[RedKestrel]

3 hours ago, Alonzo said:

Thank you to everyone who took part in our annual pilot survey. Here are the results.

 

To be clear, the admin team uses these as input, not as exclusive direction-setting guidance from the community. I think there's interesting data in here, and it's helpful. We're publishing for full transparency.

 

Also, I think it's quite funny that everyone wanted better multiplayer performance, and the developers just gave us that yesterday. So at least one wish granted for the CB player base.

cb-survey-2020-results.zipUnavailable

I can't download this, says its unavailable?

[56RAF_Stickz]

8 hours ago, Talon_ said:

The what?

just as well you southern softies had no sun for last 2 months. We would have had an extra 50000 dead after todays example of intelligence

[thatguy]

19 hours ago, driftaholic said:

Except one thing I just learned. Unlike pre-patch Techno-Chat can't be turned off without hiding the HUD entirely so now I can't see the server announcements or chat.

 

The devs heard your requests for full real, and have answered

[Barnacles]

11 hours ago, Black-Witch said:

 

I have VR and I've never used the MigiMoto mod, so I'm not going anywhere else

That's the spirit!

[VR-DriftaholiC]

2 hours ago, thatguy said:

 

The devs heard your requests for full real, and have answered

 

Maybe if they finish that ATC/Command feature I heard about I won't actually need the HUD for server announcements. 

[Alonzo]

12 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

I can't download this, says its unavailable?

 

It's saying it has 9 downloads. Weird. Here it is on dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ih93ha8htmr9h8w/cb-survey-2020-results.pdf?dl=0

 

 

[RedKestrel]

28 minutes ago, Alonzo said:

 

It's saying it has 9 downloads. Weird. Here it is on dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ih93ha8htmr9h8w/cb-survey-2020-results.pdf?dl=0

 

 

Thanks, that link worked.

[=TU=flynvrtd]

Jason dropped in on our limited 8 man discord channel last night to see how things were going and he was kind enough to field a couple questions.

 I think he was treated cordially by all involved with no malice or coarse words exchanged.

The basic "feel" I got from the exchange was that we should not hold our breath for the migoto zoom to be available again. Paraphrasing, he stated that it did in their view violate the EULA and that liberties had been taken with the Mod that they should probably not have allowed.

My feeling is that he had the opinion that those of us using VR should just deal with it (my words not his) until the VR technology catches up with the flat panel displays.

I also got the impression that the jack hole (again my words not Jasons) that had stirred up the shit storm on the forums about migoto s a well known troll and has been the source of much frustration in the past in other matters.

  Really sucks overall as the color adjustments I was able to use from peregrine thru migoto made a huge difference in appearance thru my oculus rift cv1.

 

[Barnacles]

26 minutes ago, flynvrtd said:

Jason dropped in on our limited 8 man discord channel last night to see how things were going and he was kind enough to field a couple questions.

 I think he was treated cordially by all involved with no malice or coarse words exchanged.

The basic "feel" I got from the exchange was that we should not hold our breath for the migoto zoom to be available again. Paraphrasing, he stated that it did in their view violate the EULA and that liberties had been taken with the Mod that they should probably not have allowed.

My feeling is that he had the opinion that those of us using VR should just deal with it (my words not his) until the VR technology catches up with the flat panel displays.

I also got the impression that the jack hole (again my words not Jasons) that had stirred up the shit storm on the forums about migoto s a well known troll and has been the source of much frustration in the past in other matters.

  Really sucks overall as the color adjustments I was able to use from peregrine thru migoto made a huge difference in appearance thru my oculus rift cv1.

 

Good news is though the update has improved the spotting on my Rift CV1, so the spotting at least is comparable to a monitor. 

Edited May 21, 2020 by 71st_AH_Barnacles

[=TU=flynvrtd]

He did state that we have the same level of zoom in VR as the 2D players and that except for the resolution we should be getting the same visual imagery.

 

Barnacles, can you share your graphics details...

Nvidia panel, Steam or Oculus settings, in game settings?

 I have tried  the last couple nights to get things optimized...just not sure I'm there yet.

 I

[Barnacles]

5 minutes ago, flynvrtd said:

He did state that we have the same level of zoom in VR as the 2D players and that except for the resolution we should be getting the same visual imagery.

 

Barnacles, can you share your graphics details...

Nvidia panel, Steam or Oculus settings, in game settings?

 I have tried  the last couple nights to get things optimized...just not sure I'm there yet.

 I

Ok, when I get back to my computer I'll do that. In the meanwhile, in game it's pretty much what fenris wolf suggest in the startup.cfg file for rift s in his spotting thread.

Only no super sampling, and 4xmsaa and ultra preset.

 

Nvidia is pretty much all set to use the application settings, apart from prefer maximum performance in power management.

 

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by 71st_AH_Barnacles

[Alonzo]

5 minutes ago, flynvrtd said:

He did state that we have the same level of zoom in VR as the 2D players and that except for the resolution we should be getting the same visual imagery.

 

That's confusing to me, because it's objectively not true. There are a couple of other things that Jason has stated as fact that I think are also incorrect, in other areas of the sim/game. I'm not taking issue with Jason, just pointing out that someone (or multiple people) are feeding him incorrect stuff. He's working from the best info he has, and if that's incorrect info -- for example, VR and in-game zooms are the same -- then it's difficult to fault him making a call that VR users should "just live with it". I'd like to know where the faulty intel is coming from, though, so we could correct it. It's not like Jason should be personally on the hook for testing every aspect of the sim, that's silly. He needs good info from the people around him.

 

Thanks for the write up, Fly. It's nice that Jason joined in on CB. I can see why he doesn't fly that often, though -- previous times he's been instantly mobbed in chat with whatever people's current grievances were, so it's not exactly a low-stress environment for him to join a server and hang out. Plus CB has some pretty lethal opponents...

[Barnacles]

31 minutes ago, Raven109 said:

 

That is correct.... Users who use smaller displays are also at a disadvantage when compared to the ones who use larger ones. The hardware cannot be equalized, it's always been like that. 

 

Should players who use 23" displays request a mod to bring the perceived zoom to the same level as people who use a 42" display? 

 

It's not about VR vs 2D (not sure who came up with this, but it sounds funny - something similar to PC masterrace...), it's about screen size, and this is nothing new - people who use smaller screens (this is what VR essentially is) will always be at a disadvantage when compared to larger screens.

 

Anyway, probably not the thread to discuss this, so please, carry on....

If someone feels their hardware is hampering them, they can fly only German to restore their advantage over their opponents.

Edited May 21, 2020 by 71st_AH_Barnacles

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

Just now, 71st_AH_Barnacles said:

If someone feels their hardware is hampering them, they can fly only German (EZ mode) to restore their advantage over their opponents.

 

The more I learn what each side can and can't do, the more I'm prone to distance myself from the "German = EZ mode" point of view.  That's not to say that in the early war the Lufties didn't have some rather large advantages, but by late war, the Allies were certainly at (or beyond) parity in most departments. 

 

I mean this jokingly but, dammit we need Socialized Hardware. 

[Barnacles]

5 minutes ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

 

The more I learn what each side can and can't do, the more I'm prone to distance myself from the "German = EZ mode" point of view.  That's not to say that in the early war the Lufties didn't have some rather large advantages, but by late war, the Allies were certainly at (or beyond) parity in most departments. 

 

I mean this jokingly but, dammit we need Socialized Hardware. 

Yeah I'm joking, but you'll have to admit the DM update has been rather important to the whole 20mm - v - 50 cal piece.

 

[Raven109]

14 minutes ago, 71st_AH_Barnacles said:

If someone feels their hardware is hampering them, they can fly only German to restore their advantage over their opponents.

 

No doubt.... Playing on the hard side (whichever that may be) is a choice... The quality of life depends on the choices we make.

[Barnacles]

49 minutes ago, Raven109 said:

 

That is correct.... Users who use smaller displays are also at a disadvantage when compared to the ones who use larger ones. The hardware cannot be equalized, it's always been like that. 

 

Should players who use 23" displays request a mod to bring the perceived zoom to the same level as people who use a 42" display? 

 

It's not about VR vs 2D (not sure who came up with this, but it sounds funny - something similar to PC masterrace...), it's about screen size, and this is nothing new - people who use smaller screens (this is what VR essentially is) will always be at a disadvantage when compared to larger screens.

 

Anyway, probably not the thread to discuss this, so please, carry on....

All monitors have exactly the same zoom, no matter what the size. VR natively has a much lower power zoom (1.5x)

 

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

7 minutes ago, 71st_AH_Barnacles said:

Yeah I'm joking, but you'll have to admit the DM update has been rather important to the whole 20mm - v - 50 cal piece.

 

 

True.

 

I'm ok with the German cannons giving good, or very good, results - as long as it's historical and the modelling is done as best as possible.  

I'm ok with .50 being what they are but, admittedly, subjectively, it seems to me that "historical" and "as best as possible" are lacking. 

 

Take a Yak 1.b or Yak 7 into QMB 1v1 and only use machine guns then, do the same with a .50 equipped plane. Note the differences.  

 

Thanks for the edit to the "EZ" mode post, Barnacles.  S!

Edited May 21, 2020 by 69th_Mobile_BBQ

[RedKestrel]

2 minutes ago, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

 

True.

 

I'm ok with the German cannons giving good, or very good, results - as long as it's historical and the modelling is done as best as possible.  

I'm ok with .50 being what they are but, admittedly, subjectively, it seems to me that "historical" and "as best as possible" are lacking. 

 

Take a Yak 1.b or Yak 7 into QMB 1v1 and only use machine guns then, do the same with a .50 equipped plane. Note the differences.  

Off topic, but Those 12.7 mm on the Yak's have an HE component in the round. It can't be realistically compared to an AP round, or even a hypothetical API round (which we don't yet have).