online gaming maps and coordinates

[adler_1]

hello

i was now in a mission in snow conditions Stalingrad with no map or grids so you take off and have no clue where to go and how to get back yet i see messages with grid numbers indicating ehre the enemy is , so can someone pls explain wether there is a way of turning on maps and grids if not then how on earth is everyone flying to destination and back ?  .

[Hawk-2a]

Map grids should be visible by default. At this point i don’t even know if they could be switched off. There is no such thing as coordinates on the side but rather the number is in the square on the map itself. It is in pretty low contrast so might be hard to see if zoomed far out of the map. As an example, a screenshot of one of the maps

Edited July 1, 2019 by =FC=SteelFalcon

[adler_1]

hello i tried again just now and the map comes on with the o key , there is a grid but the map does not indicate where is north enabling navigation since there is no marker of my plane on the map in movement such as in offline missions . Is there a set rule for north ? if so which side of the map is north facing the monitor ? if this is not the case then how do you navigate online around the grids and back to base if you cannot see anything ? 

[Hawk-2a]

Well as with all maps, north is always on the top. Depending on realism settings, there is no gps available (so the black plane on the map „o-key“ does not show up). To figure out where you are, look at what airfield you spawned. Then you will have to check your compass in the cockpit to see which way you are facing on take off. Then it is all about checking landmarks around you in the direction of your heading / target and orient this way

 

here is some help on how to:

 

 

Edited July 1, 2019 by =FC=SteelFalcon

[THERION]

5 minutes ago, dog1 said:

hello i tried again just now and the map comes on with the o key , there is a grid but the map does not indicate where is north enabling navigation since there is no marker of my plane on the map in movement such as in offline missions . Is there a set rule for north ? if so which side of the map is north facing the monitor ? if this is not the case then how do you navigate online around the grids and back to base if you cannot see anything ? 

 

North is always facing the top border of you map/screen. So, your left border is like 270° whereas your right border is 90° etc.

[CountZero]

navigation can be fun when you get used to it, always plan ahead where you wont to go and falow some land marks; citys bases and so on...

 

here is some videos that might help you:

 

 

 

 

[adler_1]

hello

the problem is i take off in the snow  flat for miles , no land marks  ,, no external view allowed and you dont know where you are to start navigating .  

[[_FLAPS_]Grim]

Do you know where you field is from where you start.
Russian winter maps can be sparse but there will be some. ...roads, frozen hard to find rivers, etc.

[Feathered_IV]

Sounds like my sort of mission.  

Is your airfield location marked in the Briefing before you hit the Fly button?

 

[Mikoyan74]

If you choose your airfield make a note of where you start then you can build on that,

Each map square is 10km, if you are travelling at 100 km/hr you will travel 10 km in 6 min, at 200 km it will take you 3 min and at 300 km it will take 90 secs etc..

 

now on take off - start a stop watch (clock timer on your phone and write your heading and speed on scrap paper, keep updating it and checking the map, with the info above and looking out the window at whatever landmarks you find you should know roughly where you are.  The more you fly maps the more you'll kind of know where you are there were some maps on a career mission I'd flown over a waypoint so many times I knew where my base was from that.  You can also use the cockpit nav aids if you have them fitted in you aircraft.

 

If all else fails fly to the edge of the world where the penguins with laser beams guard the great ice wall for NASA! Well according to Flat Earthers!

[adler_1]

i am trying to fly in combat box by red flight online server stalingrad map winter .. I was following the first video tutorial and his map has a set off tools on the left side of the screen with which he can plan a route , i dont have these tools . Are they an add on ?

all locations are marked .

  

[Mikoyan74]

You mean this:

 

https://il2missionplanner.com/

 

[adler_1]

yes exactly this 

[JonRedcorn]

Play on wings of liberty problem solved.

[Leon_Portier]

Keep at it my dude, you´ll get used to it after a few flights.

If you ask me you can do 3 types of navigation, find out what suits you best!

- Navigation by landmark, you go from landmark to landmark. Its very simple and you can be done on the fly! But you´ll have to constantly pay attention to the ground which can hamper your situational awareness. ("Wait, for how long is that fighter on my six following me?!")

- Pre planned navigation is very easy to do with the IL2 Missionplanner linked a few posts above! But you´ll have to do it before the flight and actually stick to the plan. ("Oh no I missed the waypoint and now I´m over the black sea!") Have a fallback navigation method ready if things get hairy.

- Navigation by clock is by far my favourite, it requires little planning and is pretty accurate. Its basically speed * time = distance, one square on the map is 10 KM long. Make yourself a table or download one with a few speeds and times. Mine has speeds 300, 400 and 500 KM/H over 1, 2, ... 10 min time and works pretty well. (On high altitudes your actual speed is faster than shown on the cockpit gauge)

 

Attachment: My scrawly distance chart for Navigation by clock

Edited July 1, 2019 by [N.O.G.F]Leon_Portier

[adler_1]

unfortunately mission planner is not integrated into the game , so you need a second pc to plan . land marks dont work when its snow and flat . checking compass before take off and head north then to where it could be  is a good way to waste  your time  .

[Hawk-2a]

Well, the skill of looking out the cockpit at stuff, then checking the map for said stuff and then check your compass for the heading in relation to said stuff doesn‘t fall in your lap right away.

 

There is some time flying around like a headless chicken searching for corn. You get lost, especially on winter maps.

 

Try it on kuban, the coast line is pretty easy to recognize on the map and a good fall back point if you are lost.

 

if you feel comfortable on kuban, consider testing stalingrad summer or autumn with the river and city as fall back point.

 

Eventually then switch to the winter version. Winter is horrible to nav with frozen rivers and clouds at times, this means you gotta stay focused really hard.

 

Also some of the most skilled guys sometimes lose situational awareness for a short time on winter maps.

 

Edited July 1, 2019 by =FC=SteelFalcon

[Feathered_IV]

Using a smartphone or tablet to access the mission planner works quite well if you only have one PC or monitor.   If you are going by landmarks in winter, I find it can still be done well enough if you are observant.  It's also a comfort to know its just as much of a challenge for the other guy too. 

 

Offset navigation makes things easier too.  It was a trick I heard from a Mosquito navigator; where you plan a route so your destination and key landmarks are all on say, the left side of you, so you only have to watch one side to stay on course.  It helps a lot.

[adler_1]

avoid winter maps  and learn mission planner , open up the laptop near by and follow . So when the website closes thats it . I read here  its not doing so well .  

 

[56RAF_Roblex]

 

The way I navigate is to look at where I want to go then look for easily spotted features along the way.  An example might be 'If I head about 280 I should pass over a small town by a river then a few minutes later pass over a second river just  where it forms a loop then look ahead for large town  in the fork of a river.   Turn to about 330 from there and the target will be just East of a large lake'   If possible  I will also sort out some subsidiary features between the big ones eg ' between the first two rivers I should pass a clearing in the woods to my left that has a train line going through from North to South. 

By checking I am seeing all that I should see on the route I know that I have not wandered off course or maybe I can adjust where I am to get back on to the correct route eg if I see I will reach the second river just south of the loop I should be passing over then I can either fly straight to it and resume my original bearing and/or adjust my bearing to be a bit more to the North.

Obviously things go wrong,  especially if you ended up in a fight, so you might end up having to work out where you are before you have any chance of knowing how to get back on course. The longer you wait before deciding to check where you are, the harder it will be to find your position again. Ideally,  never chase an enemy without checking your compass so you at least know what part of the map to look for landmarks on. 

 

One of my squadmates swears by looking at the shape of nearby woods that he can see from the cockpit and matching them to woods on the map.  I don't find that easy.  I find river shapes and forks and squiggles easier to match to things on the map.    Flying an  easy bearing like due North or West can help you to match the map because then you can say ' I am flying East and that river ahead is heading off at 45 degrees to my flight path so I need to look on the map for a river heading NE'   In Winter rivers become tricky to see because they are frozen but choosing the right altitude helps as when you are very low or very high they become invisible but at a few thousand metres they stand out more.   

 

Railways are a Godsend if you spot one because there are not so many of them so it is easier to work out which one you are over. Be careful though that you don't confuse a road for a railway.  If you are really lost just follow the railway in the direction most likely to be towards your lines and look out for any towns of rivers or parallel roads as go you until you can work out where on the line you are then decide if it is better to just stay with the line or set out towards something that should be easy to spot (or calc a heading direct to an airfield)

[adler_1]

In  mission planner i get 2 coordinates for each WP , why is that ? which is the right one ?

Edited July 1, 2019 by dog1

[Elem]

The first is the outward heading, the other is the reciprocal.

[adler_1]

thank you all for the detailed explanations and tips , all very helpful . I will now practice the online map well before going online again laptop at the ready on my side table . I will avoid winter maps for a a while . Maybe try some night missions offline   for measure  and see if i can get back to base . image of new operations room. note paper pencil

Edited July 2, 2019 by dog1

[Legioneod]

Imo this is one of the reasons we need map tools on the map like in CloD. The ability to plot points and know course heading is very valuable imo and is needed when flying full real servers.

I'd like to set up my flight plan on the ground and use it as a reference when flying, it would make things much easier, especially on maps like Moscow.

 

 

Edited July 2, 2019 by Legioneod

[356thFS_Melonfish]

I'll be honest I never bothered with any of this stuff, I went out and bought a 360° protractor with angle measure, i used visual queues and my compass along with that for dead reckoning, when heading home, same thing but with the addition of the radio homing beacon.

 

i've managed to fly in very heavy rain, attack an airfield and then fly home, visibility was so bad me and my comrades had to use our nav lights to see each other, we got bounced whilst attacking the field and all went dark and scattered into the rain, the axis pilot lost us almost immediately.

was a fun mission that.

 

 

[adler_1]

when flying  the O key GPS is great  , use that just to check wether the plot is on target . too bad we cant use it  online .

[Hawk-2a]

23 minutes ago, dog1 said:

when flying  the O key GPS is great  , use that just to check wether the plot is on target . too bad we cant use it  online .

That is a server side setting to hide gps. There is a server that is usually very populated that has the „plane icon“ switched on. The server is called Wings of Liberty

[adler_1]

where is this wings of liberty server situated ?

[Guest deleted@134347]

17 minutes ago, dog1 said:

where is this wings of liberty server situated ?

 

it's a MultiPlayer server, i.e. you need to click on MultiPlayer, then select Dogfight, the Wings of Liberty will be at the bottom of the list... Try joining it with as fewer players as possible or you'll be toast. However, it's the most popular server in MP... so your mileage will vary, both figuratively and literally.. ? 

 

I fly in VR and it's somewhat easier with the navigation since you can do very extensive scans of the landscape along with 1:1 head movement and 'natural' situational awareness, but even there it's very easy to get lost on the winter maps, I've got 1,000 hours in this game and it's still a bit unnerving flying low with no GPS, I always try to get as high altitude as possible to get the best overview of the ground...

 

 

[Diggun]

On 7/1/2019 at 10:30 AM, =FC=SteelFalcon said:

as with all maps, north is always on the top.

Assuming you mean post Medieval, Western, Cartographic maps, sure. 

 

I'll get my coat... 

[Hawk-2a]

45 minutes ago, Diggun said:

Assuming you mean post Medieval, Western, Cartographic maps, sure. 

Well it is more in reference to the in-game maps  

[Guest deleted@134347]

apparently this is an old Viking's map (Vinland) from the 13th century depicting the North American coastline..   and the North is.. there somewhere.. bummer, no coordinates either.. ?

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinland_map

[Lusekofte]

https://il2missionplanner.com/

use this mission planner. 

Find what speed you use use stopwatch and you know distance. First start out north then east then west and see if you are able to get back to starting point. 

The route you make will tell you what heading to take and how long time you will spend in set speed

[Lusekofte]

 

2 hours ago, Rekt said:

 specifically designed to confuse Invaders.

Well no one told Napoleon and Hitler that

[LLv24_SukkaVR]

19 hours ago, LuseKofte said:

https://il2missionplanner.com/

use this mission planner. 

Find what speed you use use stopwatch and you know distance. First start out north then east then west and see if you are able to get back to starting point. 

The route you make will tell you what heading to take and how long time you will spend in set speed

 

I always have this on my second screen when i play MP, but i wish you could make waypoints in game too.

[56RAF_Stickz]

20 hours ago, pomdeterre said:

apparently this is an old Viking's map (Vinland) from the 13th century depicting the North American coastline..   and the North is.. there somewhere.. bummer, no coordinates either.. ?

Still quite clearly North up, with standard east west. Its also Europe and Africa (can determine uk, mediterranean, black sea). Purportedly America coastline is the island to left of map. Also considered nowadays to be a fake.

[Elem]

1 hour ago, LuseKofte said:

 

Well no one told Napoleon and Hitler that

But it didn't bother the Golden Horde under Batu Khan and Subotai.

[zafirkalvin]

On 7/1/2019 at 9:54 AM, dog1 said:

hello

i was now in a mission  Redtube Beeg Spankbang in snow conditions Stalingrad with no map or grids so you take off and have no clue where to go and how to get back yet i see messages with grid numbers indicating ehre the enemy is , so can someone pls explain wether there is a way of turning on maps and grids if not then how on earth is everyone flying to destination and back ?  .

Russian winter maps can be sparse but there will be some. ...roads, frozen hard to find rivers, etc.

 

Edited July 20, 2019 by zafirkalvin