CLoD Blitz question for BoX players

[pilotpierre]

Devs and Moderators - Please do not shuffle this thread off to the CLoD forum as I want BoX player opinions.

 

As an old Il2 sturmovik player from when the original was first released I also purchase CLoD when it was first released.

 

When BOS was released I soon lost interest in the the shambolic CLoD. I uninstalled it when my 120 Gb SSD started to run out of space,

 

Having recently upgraded to Widows 10 and a 500 Gb SSD I am contemplating re installing Steam and Purchasing CLoD Blitz but prior to doing so I would like some unbiased opinions on its merits from BoX players prior to doing so.

 

[von_Michelstamm]

The interface is really unpleasant, controls unbinding gets old, having to use a button to get close to your gunsight, and the less exciting sensation of hitting enemies and overall less convincing feeling of “being there” always makes me go back to il2 after a week of messing with it. And I love 109es. I’m giving it more time to be fixed.

Edited October 2, 2019 by von_Michelstamm

[356thFS_Melonfish]

Wait, are you me?

 

I did exactly the same, I played 1946 with HSFX so very much, when clod came along i picked it up and it ran awfully on my system, i was lost and i didn't know what do click on etc and left it alone for a while.

i picked up BOX and i've been enjoying it so much i thought i'd go back and try clod and this is generally what i found;

so clod blitz has a number of updates to the original which have greatly improved it, graphical and gameplay wise it plays a lot better than it did originally, Team Fusion are behind these patches and there's a large one planned for v 5.0 called Sands of tobruk and it looks spectacular.

 

going from Box to clod was tough with regards to the menu, it's clunky as all hell, it's difficult to read with the backdrops and it's hard to know where everything is.

in the options you can map everything as you need but remember there's two tabs in the config, one for buttons, one for axis.

you will need to map Fuel cock, Magnito's, RPM/Prop pitch, radiators, and fuel mix on top of all the normal things you'd map for BOX.

If you have a quadrant this will help massively, but you can assign keys without bother.

 

There are some procedures for starting the various planes and each one will need to be warmed up otherwise you're in for a rough ride! Youtube still hosts many of these startup procedures and they're well worth a watch.

 

now with regards to the flight model you will find the planes very different to box, it's difficult to describe but in many respects it feels a little more "real" to me, the lighting is good and the clouds are fantastic, in BOX if you fly through a cloud you'll come out the other side the right way up, in CloD you really need to keep an eye on your instruments (like irl)

 

The damage modelling is both good and bad in this, as in, planes will be shot down with rifle calibre ammo easily, if your glycol tank is hit or your radiator pipes hit expect your engine to give out quickly! that said if you strike the ground or another plane with yours expect the wing to just shatter. otherwise it's ok.

 

gun setup and convergeance is a pain, you have to set each gun individually and it's annoying, sadly you cant save it but there are some tools out there that can allow you to set them and save configs for multiplayer games at least.

 

Overall, I really enjoy flying in CloD and i'll happily switch between it and BOX, but of course it's a preference thing I guess, I use opentrack and the trackhat clip for my head tracking, i haven't changed anything between the two, it works on both equally.

 

now here's a few links will will help for various bits.

Beginners guide:

 

Loadout util:

https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11427

 

there are others.

 

I asked about modifying the quick missions to be able to practice ground handling, modifying the saved files is perfect, just select the plane you want and save it, then modify the text file to set you on the ground.

https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31084

 

Keep an eye in the Blitz forum on here, there are updates coming out at the moment that are really fantastic, they're testing torpedoes atm!

Good hunting!

Pete

 

 

 

 

 

[Alexmarine]

I have to fully endorse CLOD Blitz:

 

While the controls and UI are old fashioned and clunky they are also highly customizable to your needs.

 

The flight model feel somewhat the same but the DM is even more finer than what we have in BoX with really well modelled HE rounds (even you Minegeshosse) and a really refined representation of all the single hits on a plane with way less wings and control surfaces getting separated when hit unless we talk about heavy HE shells

 

The AI while flying on a simplified model feels good with the 109 going vertical and the Spitfires trying to outturn you, also you have a good comm menu, they follow the orders and they report actual usefull information.

 

Setting the guns is nice to have but it is even better the sheer amount of historical option for units markings and the ability to choose your numeral on your plane (really usefull when flying whith friends)

 

Navigation is an actual task with things like magnetic deviation and more pronounced compasses accumulated error but in this case you also have the ability to play with the compass yourself and a full suite of autopilot modes on the planes that got them

 

The only real bad things I can say is that the clickpit is an example on how you don't do a clickpit (really unintuitive controls) and that the map ground textures are really bad (but at least TF's Tobruk map is already showing better textures overall); obviously if you are a VR user the lack of it is a problem on his own (if yoy can't stand TrackIRs anymore at least)

Edited October 2, 2019 by Alexmarine28

[Mac_Messer]

The game is in a patched up state and works ok since what the guys did as priority was to get it to working. Flying over cities and terrain is fine both picture (little to no lfickering) and performance (optimised) wise.   though many of its nominal features (like custom ammobelts) still don`t function at all. Flying is fun and realistic, and I don`t find the UI to be all that hard, just different.

 

For skirmishes it`s actually great, campaign or coop campaign wise it`s a pass.

 

Drivable vehicles and tanks feature is a constant WiP. I wouldn`t consider it a factor at all.

[6./ZG26_Custard]

Once you have flown  in BOX no other WWII combat flight sim comes close (That is of course my personal opinion). I tried to go back to CLOD and 1946 (with mods) but I uninstalled both very quickly.

 

 

[InProgress]

7 hours ago, pilotpierre said:

Devs and Moderators - Please do not shuffle this thread off to the CLoD forum as I want BoX player opinions.

 

As an old Il2 sturmovik player from when the original was first released I also purchase CLoD when it was first released.

 

When BOS was released I soon lost interest in the the shambolic CLoD. I uninstalled it when my 120 Gb SSD started to run out of space,

 

Having recently upgraded to Widows 10 and a 500 Gb SSD I am contemplating re installing Steam and Purchasing CLoD Blitz but prior to doing so I would like some unbiased opinions on its merits from BoX players prior to doing so.

You don't need to buy it again, you won't be even able to. Blitz was free for all clod owners. So if you log in to your steam account, it will be there. So there is no reason not to try it again.

 

Also i would not call it unbiased opinion here since many will be biased for box.

 

I will try to give you some info about clod good and bads tho.

 

Good:

1. Clod can handle lots of planes at once, lots of ground units at once. So you can really have this feeling of big events going on.

2. Planes can have a bit more realism with them, you have to wait a bit for engines to warm up. It can be fun or annoying, depends how you play but devs are working on option to have warm engine already so you don't have to wait.

3. Damage model is much better, both visually and technically. You can shoot both wings off at the same time (never seen that in box), wings don't come off so easly, you can get some hydraulic damage and your gear will go down, visualls of damaged planes are great, you see holes and you can look through them. And other stuff like that.

4. Huge ammount of assets, if mission maker wants, he can create amazing stuff. There is lots of objects, bikes, cranes, carts etc. Bunch of stuff you may not need when you think about it but it makes views much better and airfields look much more alive.

5. Bombers are much more fun to play in clod than box, you don't have that screen with buttons to press. Not every bomber even have that sight, like SM79 which looks quite fun.

6. Some unique planes you may not see in other games since it's not worth making. Bf108, Fw200 (this one AI only but that can change) etc.

7. TF is considering making B17 and other 4 engine bombers flyable.

8. Torpedoes are coming

9. Game gets patches and new content, progress is looking really nice. Africa map they show is really pretty, their new planes as well (D520, Marlet, P40, etc.)

 

Bad:

1. Some technical problems are still there.

2. MP is not very popular except some events.

3. So far not much to do in SP until Tobruk when they release bunch of scripted campaigns for many new and old planes. (Career may come for Tobruk or a bit later)

4. It's not as detailed when it comes to visuals as box, but it gives you much more planes at once because of it.

5. Existence of post Tobruk content depends on Tobruk success.

6. Still has some bugs, most visible when you hit other plane you may explode and he is not damaged (game probably thinks you hit the ground), does not happen all the time but still, Channel map is not perfect, roads end randomly, tree sits in middle of the road, rivers cut the road etc. But Tobruk map does not have any of these problems and it's developed from the scratch so it's high quality.

 

 

Overall if you are not a fanboy who will stuck with box forever and never like anything else, it's worth trying. If you have open mind and see that other sims can be fun as well and give you things that box does not have, it's really worth trying. DCS is fun to learn a plane, CloD is a bit of upgraded 1946 so you can get some nice immersion and big scale war, BoX is most polished, MP is active, it gets a lot of content.

 

Like i said, you should aleady have blitz, but for final judgment you should probably wait for Tobruk when TF  will show what they did. So far CloD Blitz is just patched and upgraded Clod from 2011. It just got a patch that fixed some AI and other bugs but the big stuff will show up in version 5.0.

 

Edited October 2, 2019 by InProgress

[JonRedcorn]

4 minutes ago, InProgress said:

You don't need to buy it again, you won't be even able to. Blitz was free for all clod owners. So if you log in to your steam account, it will be there. So there is no reason not to try it again.

 

Also i would not call it unbiased opinion here since many will be biased for box.

 

I will try to give you some info about clod good and bads tho.

 

Good:

1. Clod can handle lots of planes at once, lots of ground units at once. So you can really have this feeling of big events going on.

2. Planes can have a bit more realism with them, you have to wait a bit for engines to warm up. It can be fun or annoying, depends how you play but devs are working on option to have warm engine already so you don't have to wait.

3. Damage model is much better, both visually and technically. You can shoot both wings off at the same time (never seen that in box), wings don't come off so easly, you can get some hydraulic damage and your gear will go down, visualls of damaged planes are great, you see holes and you can look through them. And other stuff like that.

4. Huge ammount of assets, if mission maker wants, he can create amazing stuff. There is lots of objects, bikes, cranes, carts etc. Bunch of stuff you may not need when you think about it but it makes views much better and airfields look much more alive.

5. Bombers are much more fun to play in clod than box, you don't have that screen with buttons to press. Not every bomber even have that sight, like SM79 which looks quite fun.

6. Some unique planes you may not see in other games since it's not worth making. Bf108, Fw200 (this one AI only but that can change) etc.

7. TF is considering making B17 and other 4 engine bombers flyable.

8. Torpedoes are coming

9. Game gets patches and new content, progress is looking really nice. Africa map they show is really pretty, their new planes as well (D520, Marlet, P40, etc.)

 

Bad:

1. Some technical problems are still there.

2. MP is not very popular except some events.

3. So far not much to do in SP until Tobruk when they release bunch of scripted campaigns for many new and old planes. (Career may come for Tobruk or a bit later)

4. It's not as detailed when it comes to visuals as box, but it gives you much more planes at once because of it.

5. Existence of post Tobruk content depends on Tobruk success.

6. Still has some bugs, most visible when you hit other plane you may explode and he is not damaged (game probably thinks you hit the ground), does not happen all the time but still, Channel map is not perfect, roads end randomly, tree sits in middle of the road, rivers cut the road etc. But Tobruk map does not have any of these problems and it's developed from the scratch so it's high quality.

 

 

Overall if you are not a fanboy who will stuck with box forever and never like anything else, it's worth trying. If you have open mind and see that other sims can be fun as well and give you things that box does not have, it's really worth trying. DCS is fun to learn a plane, CloD is a bit of upgraded 1946 so you can get some nice immersion and big scale war, BoX is most polished, MP is active, it gets a lot of content.

 

Like i said, you should aleady have blitz, but for final judgment you should probably wait for Tobruk when TF  will show what they did. So far CloD Blitz is just patched and upgraded Clod from 2011. It just got a patch that fixed some AI and other bugs but the big stuff will show up in version 5.0.

 

Yeah there's no reason to not have all these amazing flight sims on your computer. They all offer something different which is why I have so many of them. 

[Alexmarine]

11 minutes ago, InProgress said:

 SM79 which looks quite fun.

 

It is actually a Fiat BR.20 bomber 

(SM79 will come with Tobruk I think)

 

But indeed it got an ironsight to aim your bombs in the proper bombardier position (which is not modelled in Box at all on the various bombers)

[InProgress]

7 minutes ago, Alexmarine28 said:

It is actually a Fiat BR.20 bomber 

(SM79 will come with Tobruk I think)

Oh yeah, got them mixed. It's BR20 that clod has, not SM79.

[danielprates]

What a joy to see a thread where the good things of CloD are mentioned alongside the bad. Elsewhere in this forum the subject usually only comes up to make it seem like absolute crap, and people who try to defend it a little come across as lunatics.

 

I can't wait for the Wellington!

[Greeble]

I just installed Blitz lastnight, i've owned clod since 2012 and i've never taken off or landed a plane in it. Installed it, ran like crap and i just gave up simming. I'm keen to give it a shot now.

[No601_Swallow]

My squadron was full-in on CloD for several years (until BoS, actually), but it was so so difficult to get it to do what we (as a squadron) wanted it to do - old-school IL2 '46 coops, basically, with our own mission designers putting together coop missions for our weekly campaign flights.

 

Apart from all the bugs (and there were so so many bugs!), there was a very limited range of triggers and elements you could use to create "events" in your missions. There were workarounds, but they quite literally necessitated embedding whole "sub-missions" inside your "main mission" and then activating them through scripts - that is, writing code in (I think) C++. I actually learnt some C++ - enough to stitch together code that others had written. Oh the hours I spent checking my brackets and semicolons!

 

And some of those scripts were really great. One of the devs released what I recall was several thousand lines of code that sent tenders (refuelling tankers or fire engines and ambulances) to meet your aircraft depending on whether or not you were damaged when you landed. I wrote it into one of our missions once, which led to much hilarity as ground vehicles streaked across the runway to get to landed comrades as others were still coming in to land. And that, really, was our experience of CloD - so much that coulda-shoulda-woulda been just great, and was failed or broken, and in the end we resorted to extreme and difficult workarounds to get it to do what had been soooo easy in '46.

 

The Team Dedalus crew bashed the sim into something playable - heroic and fantastic work. I haven't gone back to CloD (or Blitz) so I hope and assume that Team Fusion have continued to build on it. I really hope the new map is great when it comes.

 

The last thing I'd add is down to taste. When I last played CloD, after some months with BoS, the FMs felt much more "on rails" than BoS. It's a very personal thing, but I've always felt the feeling of flight, so to speak is more convincing in BoS. (Mind you, the cockpits in CloD were beautiful!)

Edited October 2, 2019 by No601_Swallow

[LP1888]

1 hour ago, Locksy said:

I just installed Blitz lastnight, i've owned clod since 2012 and i've never taken off or landed a plane in it. Installed it, ran like crap and i just gave up simming. I'm keen to give it a shot now.

I was the same as with blitz it’s good fun now it works hah still prefer box thou.

[Blitzen]

( A disclaimer of sortsI play flight sims for the enjoyment of the moment, the general performance & excitementent of the game & the eye candy. I have never played with expert settings & generally use normal settings in Box & CloD. I have seldom quibbled much about FMs , except the really terrible performance I was having initially way back at the beginning of Bos esp the FW-190.. I play exclusively SP , so my knowledge of how a sim works with multiplayer is non existent.That being said ..)

 I started playing sims back with LucasArts Battle of Britain & Secret weapons of the Luftwaffe, progressed thru the many others including Red Baron , European & Pacific Air War and finally found what to that point was the best oleg Maddox 's & his crew's Il-2 Sturmovik with all its iterations up to & including today's excellent & much modified B.A.T. version made available a SAS ( Special Air Services.) So some experience & many PC upgrades 9 probably due for another..

 When it was announced that Oleg was building the newest & best version of BoB in about 2006 or so I was all in. I followed every update 0n its progress complete with screenies of aircraft & vehicles. It took forever to release - it was wildly late, but I was there on the first day to download & install. Cliffs of Dover was at long last all mine! Did it meet expectations ? In a word no.id it require a new PC? Yes! ( Of course the same might be said of my experience in the first days of BOS.) What it seemed to have was promise.As you may know it had a huge negative backlash.Expectations had been so high and many simmers were unrelenting in their scorn.It killed sales 

 I continued to play it even with terrible FPS, questionable FMs and many features like RT that simply didn't work. I did so because the map was simply beautiful compared with any other combat Flight Sim then available or to Il-2 and the aircraft themselves were way better than Il-2's comparable planes AND for serious trouble free fun I always could go back to careers & campaigns in Il-2.

  Then as you probably know Oleg left the scene & at some point talented & dedicated 3rd parties came on the scene and winkled out some of th more serious performance problems (& there were a few!)New missions & campaigns were added.Ditto skins. The sim became playable , fun & very pretty indeed! It also had a few tools that made it very interesting indeed,most notable you could "fly" any plane in any mission- you could ...somewhat unbelievably ...switch planes in air! If a mission had twenty planes of different sorts you can fly it from any one of those planes ( a few notable exception most glaring the Do-17 & the Do-217 which has never been flyable nor are there any plans to make it so..)

 About 3 years ago these third part blokes were able to join hands with the BoX Studio 777 designers with the promise that the talked over big changes with Clod could occur a lot faster; new flyables ; Beaufighter , 109G. SpitV, Wildcat, Macchi 202,C-42, Gladiator,etc..& the whole new map of North Africa! There have been many tweeks in the meantime , including new variations of existing aircraft ( the most nyable the 109E & 110E) and a basically completely fine tuned CloD titled BLITZ & it does have a beautifully done Beaufighter as well. For the rest we have been patiently waiting for CloD v.5 that for a price will include all of the about & maybe more..but I must tell you it has been a long wait and if we're lucky we might see mid 2020.If we're lucky.

 In the meantime we have the absolutely ( now) wonderful Great Battles series which I must say i play most of the time esp now  with the huge upgrade of two days ago..has it had some problems / Yes but largely solved or we can depend on them being solved.Has the 777 crew lived up to its promises ? Yes it has.Is it perfect ? Well I guess everyone has an opinion don't they?  that P-38 is a honey tho! AND it has what CloD doesn't have & that is VR which is a major major quality surpassing nearly every other flight sim i can think of ( does DCS have it? I don't know...)

  So your question was...let me think ...should you purchase it. Well and i admit to being biased- i'd say yes...if only to fly over a beautifully done map of the Battle of Britain theater of operations.All of the positives are very positive indeed & you'll find the combat FMs of all the  aircraft ( esp evasive patterns to be very different from Box planes- i'll leave it to better minds than mine to judge which are most realistic...probably neither if we are to trust accounts of WW2 pilots;"...and just as suddenly the sky was empty of all the aircraft previously there! Where did they all GO?")

 You could easily wait for the long hoped for v.5 but it might be a while as I stated earlier...sadly it won't have VR either & for the moment we both have so much to play with in Great Battles: new planes, new maps etc., that you'll hardly miss another sim. I can't find the time & I really like CloD!

Edited October 2, 2019 by Blitzen

[Greeble]

4 hours ago, No601_Swallow said:

My squadron was full-in on CloD for several years (until BoS, actually), but it was so so difficult to get it to do what we (as a squadron) wanted it to do - old-school IL2 '46 coops, basically, with our own mission designers putting together coop missions for our weekly campaign flights.

 

 

That's what did me in, the old Scorched Earth coops and there was another one we all did after that. Everyone just vanished after clod, i lost interest.

[BlueHeron]

I actually miss playing CloD quite a bit.  The only reason I don't is no VR support and I sold my TrackIR.  Otherwise, it's aging quite gracefully and still being worked on. 

[SharpeXB]

If the Desastersoft Campaigns work with Blitz Edition that might be a reason to give it another try. But I’m not sure if they do or if they’re available anymore. 

For SP there really isn’t much worth doing in CloD otherwise. Just a canned campaign and a quick mission generator that’s not very good. There isn’t anything like the Career Mode in IL-2GB

[cardboard_killer]

I've never played it, but I did buy it before the Blitz, so got the update free. The price was so cheap, I bought it as much to support the people working on it than to play it. However, I am excited about the MTO they're working on and will buy that too Unless I run out of funds.

[pilotpierre]

Many thanks for all the detailed input guys. I guess I have nothing to lose by trying it out again. Having got some unbiased thoughts I will go and have a look at their forum to get a handle on what and where they are up to.

 

Once again, thanks all for your input.

[Blooddawn1942]

The only downside is the lack of VR support. CloD supporter from day one here. And when the day arrives, that VR is life after TF 5.o I'll be back in an instant. 

So much potential in this awesome sim! 

[gn728]

I think -  for me - the only thing that would make me hesitant on springing for 5.0 when it arrives would be if they made no changes to one of the lamest GUI's ever. I think they're going to, but they so far haven't been specific about it.....