Combat Box by Red Flight

[56RAF_Bo]

Yes. I think its OK. I learned my lesson ?  Next time I will remember to avoid causing friendly fire in such situations.

[Alonzo]

4 minutes ago, 56RAF_Bo said:

Yes. I think its OK. I learned my lesson ?  Next time I will remember to avoid causing friendly fire in such situations.

 

I don't think the 'real' stats site cares about friendly fire to buildings, at least not a stray bullet or two. Ignore the in-game scoreboard, the real internet points are here:

 

https://combatbox.net/en/sortie/674681/?tour=23

[Matthias_PDX]

Friendly fire affects the ‘fairplay index’ on the stats page which is one of the multipliers of the score for your sortie. The index is 100% usually, but drops by 5% for FF. 

[Alonzo]

Today is the 76th anniversary of the D-Day landings. To commemorate, we're bringing back our special D-Day map, Operation Neptune. If you'd like to take part, join the server some time this evening. The map is running on repeat at the moment. I highly recommend seeing the map from the start, as the landing ships are pretty cool.

 

The map isn't super stable, so we apologize for any crashes. But try it out and have some fun.

 

 

[357th_KW]

Any chance of keeping this one in the rotation for a bit?  I've got to travel for work for the next 3 days and I'm bummed that I'm missing this one.

[Talon_]

1 hour ago, KW_1979 said:

Any chance of keeping this one in the rotation for a bit?  I've got to travel for work for the next 3 days and I'm bummed that I'm missing this one.

 

It's an unbalanced mess that's pretty much only good "for fun" so I'm not sure if the community would let us get away with it ?

[Alonzo]

1 hour ago, Talon_ said:

It's an unbalanced mess that's pretty much only good "for fun" so I'm not sure if the community would let us get away with it ?

 

I just describe it to my flight mates as "Berloga with a plot" and they laughed heartily. It's basically a giant clusterf---. Fun, though.

 

One of these days I'm gonna start making a Combat Box co-op mission series. Not sure if D-Day makes any sense for that, maybe as a fighter escort on the Allied side.

[Talon_]

Aaaand that's it for D-Day. I hope everyone enjoyed this change from our normal schedule - regular programming has been resumed ?

[Alonzo]

Central posted a great clip. Maybe this is what it would have been like, had the Luftwaffe shown up for D-Day.

 

 

[Talon_]

I had an encounter and thought it worth cutting together

 

 

 

[Kampfpilot_JG3]

Fuse timing question

 I tried 2 sec fuse for ground targets and they did not explode .I always use default and they always do explode . So what is contact and 1 to 10 fuse setting used for ? I am using now 5 sec for skip bombing and working fine .

[RedKestrel]

10 minutes ago, dog1 said:

Fuse timing question

 I tried 2 sec fuse for ground targets and they did not explode .I always use default and they always do explode . So what is contact and 1 to 10 fuse setting used for ? I am using now 5 sec for skip bombing and working fine .

I would either make a post about fuse timing in the Manuals and Tutorials section of the forum. Or do a search there, I'm pretty sure there was a big thread going over how all the various fuses worked for ground attack. I have never noticed a problem with bombs not exploding on the server, barring some netcode issues which are fairly hard to reproduce, I don't think this is a server problem.

There doesn't seem to be any penalty to setting your bombs to have a really long fuse time, unless you are trying to kill moving targets. Long fuse bombs should explode even if dropped from treetop height.

[Kampfpilot_JG3]

engine failures

Today for the first time ever my FW190 A8  seized in flight at cruising speed  . Is this a random feature  setting by the server or is it my fault somewhere ?  

[RedKestrel]

1 hour ago, dog1 said:

engine failures

Today for the first time ever my FW190 A8  seized in flight at cruising speed  . Is this a random feature  setting by the server or is it my fault somewhere ?  

There are no random engine failure settings anywhere in Il-2, not on server side or in the game client. What happened was:
-it's a game bug in how the engine damage works for the A8 - I think this is unlikely as it would have been found by now, but its possible.
-your engine had previously sustained damage in a fight that you were not aware of, and it seized because of that
-you accidentally hit the "Engine Start/Stop" key and shut the engine off in flight. I have done this before.

-you overheated the engine

-you ran out of fuel

-you were running at higher MP/RPM than you thought by a little bit and accidentally went into 'emergency mode' and burned out your engine.

If you have a track or a recording of the flight, you should submit it in the technical issues part of the forum so the devs can look at it. Without a track or recording no one can tell what went wrong. But its almost certainly not a server side issue.

[Kampfpilot_JG3]

from your list i strongly suspect i inadvertently went into emergency for a period of time .  Got to sharpen up .

[-SF-Disarray]

On the bomb fuse timers. Bombs were fitted with a drop safety that required so much time in free fall before they would arm and then detonate. In game it seems to be around a 5 second flight time to arm. I don't know if this is true to real life WW2 bombs though. This means you have to drop the bomb so it will fall/fly for 5 seconds before hitting something. The only way around this safety is to put a delay on the bomb fuse. A 5 second delay will circumvent the safety.

[Alonzo]

Hey everyone, I'm pleased to say we'll be doing an open test of a new map later today (about 2 hours from now). It's called The 262 Menace and I hope you'll find it fun. The open test includes infinite ammo air spawns so everyone can get stuck into the targets and demolish them. Here's the map from the mission planner:

 

[=BES=Senor_Jefe]

On 6/9/2020 at 3:04 PM, -SF-Disarray said:

On the bomb fuse timers. Bombs were fitted with a drop safety that required so much time in free fall before they would arm and then detonate. In game it seems to be around a 5 second flight time to arm. I don't know if this is true to real life WW2 bombs though. This means you have to drop the bomb so it will fall/fly for 5 seconds before hitting something. The only way around this safety is to put a delay on the bomb fuse. A 5 second delay will circumvent the safety.

This used to be an issue about a year ago.  But now it is not.  I had recently heavily practiced doing bombing runs in a 109 at 20m with 1 sec bomb fuse at 650kph and it worked flawlessly.  Did it in multiple servers.

[KoN_]

Seems some maps are dark or towards sunset , its very difficult to spot things . Even seen contacts . Any chance of more light . 

Also lots of players are following all the way back to base can we have more flak guns up along the routes . 

At least we can see flak . 

Players are completely missing out targets and just attacking spawn points or just plain camping the AF.  more flak please . 

[Alonzo]

10 hours ago, ACG_KoN said:

Seems some maps are dark or towards sunset , its very difficult to spot things . Even seen contacts . Any chance of more light . 

Also lots of players are following all the way back to base can we have more flak guns up along the routes . 

At least we can see flak . 

Players are completely missing out targets and just attacking spawn points or just plain camping the AF.  more flak please . 

 

Every map has an 'alternate' weather version, 40% chance of being run. Some of those maps have dawn or dusk times. I'm planning a proper time/weather randomizer in future.

 

For the flak thing, which map has the problem? Most maps have extra flak near airfields. More flak = worse server performance.

[Fritz_Faber]

I'm missing best mission ever …. Mitchells men … ??

 

[Alonzo]

I'm pleased to announce that this Saturday we will debut a new mission, The 262 Menace.

 

September, 1944. The Allies are slowly driving German forces back across Europe and into the heartland of the Reich itself. In southern England, preparations are under way for the ambitious Operation Market Garden. The Luftwaffe's Me-262 jet fighter has entered service, delayed by Hitler's insistence on converting it to a bomber, but is nonetheless inflicting losses on Allied forces. The Allies attempt to counter the "262 Menace" by striking the jets operating base at Eindhoven. Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe attack Antwerp, a deep-water port held by the Allies which is being used to supply the front line...

 

 

The map features AI-piloted Me-262s as a first-class mission objective. The 262s are operating out of Eindhoven and striking targets in Allied territory. If the Allies can destroy enough 262s (either in the air or parked on the ground at Eindhoven) they gain a victory point. The mission also features our latest "on demand" repair/refuel/rearm mechanics -- pilots can repair at some non-player airfields and must overfly the field to indicate they wish to repair. Ground crews will then start yellow signal smoke, if repair is available, and the pilot can land and take advantage of the facilities. These airfields have some light AAA defending them, but pilots should repair at their own risk!

 

You can read more about the mission and see all of our maps on our Combat Box missions page.

 

 

[422nd_RedSkull]

@Alonzo

@Talon_

Pls watch the last report of the new map from the 262. The blues dont destroy any targets, we elineted all 262 and destroied 02 targets but the report is a blue vistory. Its reaaly correct or is a bug?

 

Tks

[Kampfpilot_JG3]

one hr ago all was normal then when i logged in to play again that's the server list i get , what causes this ?

[Talon_]

1 hour ago, =ABr=422nd_RedSkull said:

@Alonzo

@Talon_

Pls watch the last report of the new map from the 262. The blues dont destroy any targets, we elineted all 262 and destroied 02 targets but the report is a blue vistory. Its reaaly correct or is a bug?

 

Tks

 

I was there too! We're on it

[Sketch]

1 hour ago, dog1 said:

one hr ago all was normal then when i logged in to play again that's the server list i get , what causes this ?

 

A patch was released, and we hadn't updated yet (and from your screenshot, neither had many servers). The server should up and running now.

[Alonzo]

Randomized weather and time of day is now live!

 

Previously, we had two versions of each map, with hand-crafted weather and time of day. The server controller picked regular or 'alternate' so players got some variety. Now, though, weather for most of our maps will be randomized every day so each mission will look different each time you play it. Basically we choose cloud cover and height, turbulence, and time of day based on a "weighted distribution". There is approximately 5% chance of clear skies, 25% chance of light cloud, 50% chance medium cloud, 15% chance heavy cloud, 5% chance of overcast.

my %cloud_cover_weights = (
    "1200;1300;summer\\00_Clear_00\\sky.ini" => 1,
    "1200;1300;summer\\00_Clear_01\\sky.ini" => 1,
    "1200;1300;summer\\00_Clear_02\\sky.ini" => 1,
    "1200;1300;summer\\00_Clear_03\\sky.ini" => 1,
    "1200;1300;summer\\00_Clear_04\\sky.ini" => 1,
    "800;600;summer\\01_Light_01\\sky.ini" => 5,
    "1800;1150;summer\\01_Light_02\\sky.ini" => 5,
    "1000;1150;summer\\01_Light_04\\sky.ini" => 5,
    "2200;1150;summer\\01_Light_06\\sky.ini" => 5,
    "2500;1150;summer\\01_Light_08\\sky.ini" => 5,
    "1200;1300;summer\\02_Medium_00\\sky.ini" => 10,
    "2800;1100;summer\\02_Medium_02\\sky.ini" => 10,
    "2100;1300;summer\\02_Medium_04\\sky.ini" => 10,
    "3200;1300;summer\\02_Medium_06\\sky.ini" => 10,
    "1600;1000;summer\\02_Medium_08\\sky.ini" => 10,
    "2900;1500;summer\\03_Heavy_03\\sky.ini" => 5,
    "2500;1500;summer\\03_Heavy_08\\sky.ini" => 5,
    "1800;1500;summer\\03_Heavy_09\\sky.ini" => 5,
    "800;300;summer\\04_Overcast_04\\sky.ini" => 3,
    "1500;500;summer\\04_Overcast_06\\sky.ini" => 3,
);
my $cloud_cover_biased_random = new BiasedRandom(%cloud_cover_weights);

You can read the arrow as "percentage chance" and the two numbers at the start of the line are the cloud base altitude and height. So this is 6% chance of overcast, 5% chance of clear skies, 25% chance light cloud, 50% chance medium, 15% chance heavy.

 

Here's turbulence range, given weather. "10" turbulence is decently high, I don't usually like to set it above that as it makes shooting very difficult. The script will pick a random number between the two turbulence values.

sub turbulence_for_weather {
    my $weather = shift;
    my ($min, $max) = (2, 6);
    ($min, $max) = (5, 10) if($weather =~ /heavy/i);
    ($min, $max) = (2, 8) if($weather =~ /medium/i);
    ($min, $max) = (1, 7) if($weather =~ /light/i);
    ($min, $max) = (1, 7) if($weather =~ /clear/i);
    ($min, $max) = (1, 4) if($weather =~ /overcast/i);
    my $turbulence = $min + int(rand($max - $min)) + 1;
    return $turbulence / 10;
}

 

For time of day, missions can be flown starting at just before dawn until just before dusk, with roughly twice the chance of a mission starting between 10am and 3pm. The chance of a dawn or dusk mission depends on the time of year, with winter months being more likely, but is around 10% or less. Mission weather is randomized daily. For winter maps and very specific scenarios we are not randomizing time of day. For example, Y-29 is always a 9am mission with good weather (because navigating that map with heavy cloud in winter is really difficult!).

 

Feedback appreciated as always.

[Matthias_PDX]

Cool. Maybe one day the devs will have provisions for localized weather but things like this are nice in the meantime. 

[[301]luckyhendrix]

Awesome ! I love to see more variety of wheater ! Hash conditions can be real fun :D

[KoN_]

2 hours ago, [301]luckyhendrix said:

Awesome ! I love to see more variety of wheater ! Hash conditions can be real fun ?

Not with this poor spotting we have now , no thanks . This game has become totally frustrating with its spotting and id difficulties . 

 

 

 

[Kampfpilot_JG3]

 

MITCHELLS men mission

what does that mean and what do i do ?

Edited June 17, 2020 by dog1

[RedKestrel]

22 minutes ago, dog1 said:

 

MITCHELLS men mission

what does that mean and what do i do ?

Are you getting this error when trying to join a server or just at the base menu? Maybe your Il-2 server got changed to read-only.

[Kampfpilot_JG3]

i am getting this message when entering the game programmed for right now . i played legend of y previously 30 mn ago and all was fine . i note nobody has joined . Could you pls test it ? i remember there was a notice that this mission is not yet stable .

Edited June 17, 2020 by dog1

[Kampfpilot_JG3]

Closing of the Ruhr mission

Unable to access the mission with the same declaration as posted above , can someone help please . so far i dont see any players listed as playing .

Edited June 17, 2020 by dog1

[RedKestrel]

20 minutes ago, dog1 said:

Closing of the Ruhr mission

Unable to access the mission with the same declaration as posted above , can someone help please . so far i dont see any players listed as playing .

If you have discord you should message the admins there, probably the server just needs a restart. Whether any of the admins are available to do it is another question but Discord is more likely to get an answer than the forums.

I'm just on my coffee break at work, not able to try and test it myself unfortunately or get on discord.

Just in case any admins are around on the forums:

@Alonzo @Talon_ @Sketch Looks like maybe the server needs a restart?

[Kampfpilot_JG3]

i'm not into discord , just a player . The fact no players have been able to log in for the last 5 hrs must mean there has got be some glitch somewhere . Like you said we have to wait for the admin to notice and react . surprised i'm the only one raising the alarm .   

[SYN_Mike77]

Just checked and combat box is not showing up on the list of servers right now.  Although their training server is.

[Talon_]

Hi guys

 

We've had a little issue with the new weather generation engine. Alonzo is working on it currently and we'll have the server back up ASAP!

[Alonzo]

41 minutes ago, Talon_ said:

Hi guys

 

We've had a little issue with the new weather generation engine. Alonzo is working on it currently and we'll have the server back up ASAP!

 

It's fixed now. There's a glitch in one of the IL2 utilities -- if you give it a path name that has a mixture of backwards and forward slashes it mostly works but buggers up the subtitles ".list" file, and then no-one can connect to the server.

 

No-one noticed because this is not peak time for us. Once someone reported it on Discord, we took a look. We don't monitor the forum thread as actively. If you want to get our attention, as we've said multiple times before, the best way is to get on Discord.

[Talon_]

Hi all

 

It looks like we will be restricting injectors in the near future. Alonzo has just received a Pimax display so we can do some testing to see how necessary the VR mod is for it, but based on some more recent developments of injectors to aid cheating in IL-2 we're starting to feel like enabling them could have a negative impact on player experience.

 

I'll keep you posted but for now you may wish to consider disabling them and trying out IL-2 without them.