Flying entire career with no aids (no icons, no mini-map with GPS and perfect "radar", etc.)

[cmorris975]

I'm currently 5 sorties into a Hurricane career (love this plane!).  I try to fly as realistically as possible, but I often get disoriented after a furball and end up switching on icons and/or outside views for a moment in order to figure out where my flight is so I can rejoin.

 

This got me thinking: is it possible to fly an entire career using the most hardcore settings possible?  As in, no icons, mini-map (with GPS of friendlies and enemies) or outside views...  No helpers of any kind?

 

Maybe part of the problem is I am flying using a CV 1 with no super-sampling, so it is a little blurry when searching for far off contacts with no icons on.  Maybe I am not paying attention enough to navigation.  I am able to use options like distant buildings, sharpen and x4 landscape distance detail.  Those options definitely help some.

 

I'd love to use no aids whatsoever.  I can get get close to that, but not quite all the way there.

 

I love the planes with navigation helpers (home in on beacons) for RTB as they at least make it so I can always orient towards home!

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

 

Chris

Edited January 4, 2021 by cmorris975

[unreasonable]

That is how I have always flown my careers ever since Rise of Flight and Il-2 46. Except I do use the main briefing map in flight on occasion, (not the minimap) but with no plane marker - real pilots did have maps, at least some of the time.

 

It certainly makes you pay far more attention to knowing the geography of your area and keeping track of where you are. I also find it more immersive since I find 2D images on the screen break the illusion of depth, as well as being more of a challenge. (Play dead-is-dead and no time acceleration to really make you focus!)

 

If your screen is a bit small and this just makes the experience less enjoyable, use icons etc. I do not think that the issue here is realism - this is just a game - but what works for the individual in terms of immersion, fun and motivation.

[danielprates]

1 hour ago, cmorris975 said:

This got me thinking: is it possible to fly an entire career using the most hardcore settings possible?  As in, no icons, map or outside views...  No helpers of any kind

 

"No map" isn't realistic, even with the intended mission plan drawn over it. What makes the map unrealiatic are moving icons of any kind.

[firdimigdi]

Navigation is very do-able as the route is marked on the map.  As long as you've studied the area enough to recognize landmarks (esp. for winter maps). Setting up your own orienteering flights in the quick mission builder is a good exercise for such. IDing contacts can be a pain though in VR with the CV1 and the radio chatter is of minimal help.

[Eisenfaustus]

As the others stated: Maps were used - and if a pilot didn’t have one he would have drawn his own with important landmarks such as rivers, railways, mountains, highways and settlements. 

 

after a disorienting furball I usually start heading roughly in the direction of friendly troops so I don’t go into captivity if I run out of fuel, then start comparing what I see on the ground with the map until I recognise something. Once you know where you are it’s easy. 

[Dutchvdm]

14 minutes ago, Eisenfaustus said:

As the others stated: Maps were used - and if a pilot didn’t have one he would have drawn his own with important landmarks such as rivers, railways, mountains, highways and settlements. 

 

after a disorienting furball I usually start heading roughly in the direction of friendly troops so I don’t go into captivity if I run out of fuel, then start comparing what I see on the ground with the map until I recognise something. Once you know where you are it’s easy. 

 

This. And to make it even more convenient, a lot of the planes have radio beacon navigation installed or available as an option. That makes navigation on the return trip even easier.

 

Grt M

[Lusekofte]

I do not use icons on map myself most of the times. But on multicrew aircraft you can do so an tell yourself it is the navigator. Idea is it is SP, you do what you like

[cmorris975]

2 hours ago, I./ZG1_Dutchvdm said:

 

This. And to make it even more convenient, a lot of the planes have radio beacon navigation installed or available as an option. That makes navigation on the return trip even easier.

 

Grt M

 

Right, that's what I was referencing in my original post about that planes that make it easy to return home via the option to install a navigation aid that homes in on the home field beacon.  It's become one of my favorite features of an aircraft!

7 hours ago, danielprates said:

 

"No map" isn't realistic, even with the intended mission plan drawn over it. What makes the map unrealiatic are moving icons of any kind.

 I meant the mini-map that you can turn on that has your plane, and all other planes, friendly or enemy, superimposed in real-time over the top of it.  I will edit the original post, but just to make it clear: I am talking about trying to fly entire careers with no "game aids".  

Edited January 4, 2021 by cmorris975

[enyak]

I suspect VFR navigation difficulty may be unrealistically heightened somewhat by a lack unique landmarks and textures unlike the real world which has more detailed scenery. Not to say that realworld VFR is easy, you can get easily lost up there.

[[DBS]Browning]

6 minutes ago, enyak said:

I suspect VFR navigation difficulty may be unrealistically heightened somewhat by a lack unique landmarks and textures unlike the real world which has more detailed scenery. Not to say that realworld VFR is easy, you can get easily lost up there.

 

I suspect it may be the other way round; VFR nav is easier ingame than in reality.

 

The cities and forests ingame have very distinct shapes that correspond exactly to the map. Roads can be seen from a great distance.

 

In reality forests often blend onto their surroundings without a clear edge and maps will only approximate their edges. Unpaved roads are hidden by hedges, scrub or just by being the same colour as the surrounding earth. Especially in the time period, maps were often incomplete, inaccurate or many years out of date.

 

I have never had to navigate in IL2 by flying a set heading at a set speed for a certain amount of time. It isn't necessary given the accuracy of the maps and the distinct terrain. In reality, this is how the vast majority of navigation was done.

[unreasonable]

21 minutes ago, [DBS]Browning said:

 

I have never had to navigate in IL2 by flying a set heading at a set speed for a certain amount of time. It isn't necessary given the accuracy of the maps and the distinct terrain. In reality, this is how the vast majority of navigation was done.

 

I have on several occasions - the BoM career starts in the winter with 5/10- 8/10 cloud cover on many occasions. You get fleeting glimpses of bits of forest and villages.  If you lose track of where you are on the Moscow map even with no cloud it can be surprisingly difficult to fix your location.The area is a mishmash of winding rivers and blobs of forest with few very clear landmarks except a couple of the major towns. A fractal nightmare! 

 

The other maps are much easier - although I suspect that the BoBP map also has areas that are hard in bad weather.

 

Map, compass and wrist-watch!  

[Robli]

I also think that the navigation in game is a lot easier compared to reality. Shapes of forests and villages etc are easily recognizable on the game map and you can zoom in and out as  you want. On real maps villages and small towns (less than 5000 population) were just circles or squares on the map, so a pilot could verify his position, by seeing that yes, there is a village where I expect it to be, but he could not necessarily determine his location, when he was lost, by just looking at the shape of the village. Bodies of water were generally the most important landmarks, as they were easy to see from air, generally even at night, and their shapes did not change, even if maps were otherwise out of date. Towns, airports, railroads, roads etc were of course also used as landmarks, but lakes and rivers were more important. 

Of course if your plane had a navigation radio, then beacons helped you out.

Edited January 4, 2021 by Robli

[56RAF_Roblex]

When online my squad have never used anything other than the map and never fly in servers that have GPS.   Yes we get lost after a furball sometimes but it all adds to the fun.   A few of my squad are very good at navigating to the target using compass and stopwatch but personally I make a route from landmark to landmark eg "Fly 320, passing over a bridge over a river until you reach a city in a loop of a second river then turn North" etc.   If I get lost after a furball then I try to fly one of the four main cardinals while looking for landmarks as I find it easy easier to relate what I am seeing to the map if I know I am flying East or North.   Offline in campaigns I do the same.  If the sortie expects me to return using vector and stopwatch above the clouds then I fly below the clouds and look for expected landmarks.  I have been lost a few times but it is very satisfying when you suddenly realise you 100% know where you are.

Edited January 14, 2021 by 56RAF_Roblex

[Yogiflight]

2 hours ago, 56RAF_Roblex said:

When online my squad have never used anything other than the map and never fly in servers that have GPS.   Yes we get lost after a furball sometimes but it all adds to the fun. 

The big advantage of flying MP with your squad is, you can ask your buddies for their position. Something, that is absolutely missing in SP.

I constantly get lost after dogfights in SP. When I don't find my squadmates, I simply return to base. The fancy thing, usually I meet them exactly there.

[danielprates]

5 hours ago, enyak said:

I suspect VFR navigation difficulty may be unrealistically heightened somewhat by a lack unique landmarks and textures unlike the real world which has more detailed scenery. Not to say that realworld VFR is easy, you can get easily lost up there.

 

I always found it enjoyable (if not 'easy') to use landmarks in all maps, it is one of the things done very well by the devs. Save for some mostly homogenous areas in the Stalingrad map and the farmlands in the Kuban map. 

[cmorris975]

On 1/4/2021 at 6:24 AM, unreasonable said:

 

I have on several occasions - the BoM career starts in the winter with 5/10- 8/10 cloud cover on many occasions. You get fleeting glimpses of bits of forest and villages.  If you lose track of where you are on the Moscow map even with no cloud it can be surprisingly difficult to fix your location.The area is a mishmash of winding rivers and blobs of forest with few very clear landmarks except a couple of the major towns. A fractal nightmare! 

 

The other maps are much easier - although I suspect that the BoBP map also has areas that are hard in bad weather.

 

Map, compass and wrist-watch!  

That’s awesome. Something to aspire to!

 

I did manage my first career mission today with no aids, start to finish, in the Hurricane.  I even got a kill on a G-2 when we were jumped coming home from our troop cover mission.  Embarrassingly, I did put a couple of 12.7mm into a friendly.  He got home fine though.

 

The Stalingrad map south and east of the city was where we were.  I used large frozen lakes and small towns to navigate.  It was weird, we seemed to be flying around aimlesssly after our furball for quite awhile...  Then I figured out that our flight actually trying to follow me, so I got us home!  Maybe the flight leader was shot down....  I didn’t have time to debrief properly as the mission was super long and I had RL stuff to do.

 

At least I managed to navigate us all home.  Only the faintest wisp of Stalingrad smoke was visible far to the north, but that helped me navigate as well.

 

Fun stuff.

Edited January 5, 2021 by cmorris975

[a_fan]

22 hours ago, enyak said:

I suspect VFR navigation difficulty may be unrealistically heightened somewhat by a lack unique landmarks and textures unlike the real world which has more detailed scenery. Not to say that realworld VFR is easy, you can get easily lost up there.

I fully agree.  I have some real life VFR experience and in my opinion navigation in real word is easier than in the game. 
If you are familiar with the area where you are flying it is easy to recognise buildings,  railroads or roads, especially major ones or even villages by its shape comparing to the map. 
Not to mention that these days you can have google maps or similar tool displayed on your iPad for the whole flight so you will be able even to recognise the forest by it a shape.

Comparing to the above in game navigation with out map is in my opinion very difficult.

[56RAF_Roblex]

22 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

The big advantage of flying MP with your squad is, you can ask your buddies for their position. Something, that is absolutely missing in SP.

I constantly get lost after dogfights in SP. When I don't find my squadmates, I simply return to base. The fancy thing, usually I meet them exactly there.

 

You have reminded me of a video I made offline where I stayed over the target when everyone else did one pass and went home.   Like you,  I made my own way home and even though I stayed longer then got a bit lost, I somehow arrived back just at the same time as the rest of the squad... then I upset the Flight Leader (just jump to 09:20 if you only want to see how I upset him) ?

 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2021 by 56RAF_Roblex

[Yogiflight]

1 hour ago, 56RAF_Roblex said:

then I upset the Flight Leader

Yes, I know that way of making myself popular, very well.

But it is their own shame, when they always duddle around like that.

BTW, nice weather, reminds me of the last three or four months.

[ktriggerk0ld]

On 1/4/2021 at 6:24 AM, unreasonable said:

 

I have on several occasions - the BoM career starts in the winter with 5/10- 8/10 cloud cover on many occasions. You get fleeting glimpses of bits of forest and villages.  If you lose track of where you are on the Moscow map even with no cloud it can be surprisingly difficult to fix your location.The area is a mishmash of winding rivers and blobs of forest with few very clear landmarks except a couple of the major towns. A fractal nightmare! 

 

The other maps are much easier - although I suspect that the BoBP map also has areas that are hard in bad weather.

 

Map, compass and wrist-watch!  

^^ This

 

I have purchased everything available in the game, all battles/maps and all collector airplanes (except Yak9 and Yak9T).

I started 2 BoM careers - IL-2 and MiG-3 as I want to do it chronologically and progress into later maps. I fly in VR exclusively, and my system isn't the latest (i7, 16Gb, SSD, nVidia 2060, Quest).

 

While I managed to fly IL-2 career without any aids on hard level with medium density (except when there is low thick cloud covering the entire sky), there is NO WAY to complete a Mig-3 career on the BoM map flying in VR  at full realism IMHO (at least on my hardware). There are simply no distinct landmarks, a couple of railroads that can be hard to see is all you get for landmarks. You have to be within 3-4km distance from a town to be able to see it. The zoom function doesn't help make out distant objects.

 

When the mission target is 150km away from Vnukovo, good luck finding your way home after a dogfight. The mesh of rivers and forest patches that all look the same, and I have to pause the game and really take my time studying the map to figure out where the hell I am.

 

I don't know about your VR experience but on my system, I only get a (somewhat) clear picture of the landscape within a couple of km's radius of my current position. Beyond that, the image quality degrades super rapidly in 2 distinct steps, so that within 2 km it is ok, 2.1km worse, 2.2 km - it's pretty much a grey vague mass where even an airport with its large hangars is very hard to ID.

 

I still enjoy every minute of it. BF109-F2's I eat for lunch, the E-7's outturn me every time and they pose a greater threat to me. The F4's are a danger and require full focus as they are simply faster and turn better.

[cmorris975]

10 hours ago, ktriggerk0ld said:

^^ This

 

I have purchased everything available in the game, all battles/maps and all collector airplanes (except Yak9 and Yak9T).

I started 2 BoM careers - IL-2 and MiG-3 as I want to do it chronologically and progress into later maps. I fly in VR exclusively, and my system isn't the latest (i7, 16Gb, SSD, nVidia 2060, Quest).

 

While I managed to fly IL-2 career without any aids on hard level with medium density (except when there is low thick cloud covering the entire sky), there is NO WAY to complete a Mig-3 career on the BoM map flying in VR  at full realism IMHO (at least on my hardware). There are simply no distinct landmarks, a couple of railroads that can be hard to see is all you get for landmarks. You have to be within 3-4km distance from a town to be able to see it. The zoom function doesn't help make out distant objects.

 

When the mission target is 150km away from Vnukovo, good luck finding your way home after a dogfight. The mesh of rivers and forest patches that all look the same, and I have to pause the game and really take my time studying the map to figure out where the hell I am.

 

I don't know about your VR experience but on my system, I only get a (somewhat) clear picture of the landscape within a couple of km's radius of my current position. Beyond that, the image quality degrades super rapidly in 2 distinct steps, so that within 2 km it is ok, 2.1km worse, 2.2 km - it's pretty much a grey vague mass where even an airport with its large hangars is very hard to ID.

 

I still enjoy every minute of it. BF109-F2's I eat for lunch, the E-7's outturn me every time and they pose a greater threat to me. The F4's are a danger and require full focus as they are simply faster and turn better.

Yeah, I haven’t tried to do a full real Moscow front career, but I could imagine how tough that would be.  I’d definitely try to fly a plane that can home in on beacons.  Maybe the Lagg-3 can do that?  I realize that particular plane may not be your preference, just pointing out what I might try.

 

Possibly more helpful might be some sort of config file settings to improve the distance at which one might be able to detect landmarks.  Are there any config settings that we could alter in order to expand our ‘landscape detail bubble’?

[PB0_Roll]

Cities popup seems harcoded.

 

To navigate, start by studying your flight plan before flying, making note of significant landmarks. Once on your way to target, take note of every of these landmarks you flew over, and where the sun is relative to your aircraft.

[ktriggerk0ld]

2 hours ago, KGM_Roll said:

Cities popup seems harcoded.

 

To navigate, start by studying your flight plan before flying, making note of significant landmarks. Once on your way to target, take note of every of these landmarks you flew over, and where the sun is relative to your aircraft.

The only easily doable missions on the BoM map are those that follow the railroad west through Mozhaisk towards Gzhatsk and Rzhev.

That's the only reliable landmark on the entire map that I've been able to use consistently in my IL-2 career and not get lost because it takes me straight to my home base at Kubinka.

 

If I try to use that railroad as a landmark in the MiG-3 career taking off from Vnukovo airport, I get WAY off planned route most of the time. And given half the missions are 140km or more one-way, that's simply not practical. Not a single hill or large river along the route, nothing that would immediately pop in your head "I know where I am!"

 

What makes it even more difficult is the building structures look the same whether you are flying over a medium-sizedd town or a small village. Everything is gray with exactly the same landscape around it. I guess IRL the pilot could use different colour patterns or patches of decidious trees without leaves vs coniferous forests. Just as an example. PLus the VR resolution isn't quite there yet to match the pixel density of a uman eye.

 

Again, I am not knocking the game. I love it as it is. I just resort to navigational aids to make it playable for me. As I finish the BoM careers and move on to BoS map, I may reconsider if I find it easier to navigate without the aids. I hope the Volga river will be a pretty darn good landmark  but I am resisting the temptation to try it out yet. I want to go through the entire BoM career first.

[PB0_Roll]

As mentioned above by someone else, real flights are often even more difficult. Now landscape is important, but you can also use heading/time.

 

Try to take notice of any indication of wind drift, take an easy speed to make calculations (300kph, 400kph for example). Even if, when heading home, you don't get exactly where you wanted, as long as you know roughly where you will end, you should be able to get home. Now indeed moscow map is pretty difficult, but it's very gratifying when you get used to it, hang on !

Edited January 6, 2021 by KGM_Roll

[ktriggerk0ld]

32 minutes ago, KGM_Roll said:

As mentioned above by someone else, real flights are often even more difficult. Now landscape is important, but you can also use heading/time.

 

Try to take notice of any indication of wind drift, take an easy speed to make calculations (300kph, 400kph for example). Even if, when heading home, you don't get exactly where you wanted, as long as you know roughly where you will end, you should be able to get home. Now indeed moscow map is pretty difficult, but it's very gratifying when you get used to it, hang on !

I see your point, and I am not discouraged in the least from making it as realistic as possible. Time is at a premium though. As many here are "mature pilots" with family and kids, certain compromises are "acceptable" to get an overall satisfying experience from the Sim.

 

On the point of calculations. I find it difficult to time bomber or ground attack escort missions. What I mean is this.

 

When I fly IL2 on a ground attack mission, I fly at 340km/h. In a Pe-2  on a bombing mission ~370km/h.

 

BUT when I fly a Mig-3 on an escort mission, those IL-2's or Pe-2's are always flying at ~300km/h which presents big problems for me:

 

1) the calculated numbers on the mission map are for Mig-3 cruise speed of 445km/h, so I have to recalculate total flight times for all waypoints to and from the target location, which is additional time. Now, 445/300 gives me ~1.5 factor which isn't bad for the numbers but has a very significant effect on the next point

2) Given strong side winds (in the vast majority of BoM missions the wind is generally coming from the North), the headings are very difficult to calculate, especially at much lower actual in-game speeds of 300km/h. Easy to say, just stay with the pack and follow your bombers but when you get attacked 60km short of the target, get caught in a dog fight for 10 minutes, rejoining the Peshka's becomes more difficult. Oftentimes, I am attacked on the way home, and the Peshka's are gone far enough so I have to find my own way home which is more than 100km away over a terrain where each 10x10km square looks almost exactly like the 8 squares it borders with.

3) the time it takes to get to the target location in many escort missions is in excess of 30 min. I try to use accelerated time to speed it up, and when I notice I can't get x2 anymore, it means enemy aircraft is approaching. But regardless, those missions can easily take over 1 whole hour to complete. I cannot afford additional time trying to find my way home, so I use navigation aids.

 

Again, not a knock on the game, just trying to explain why I am using the navigation aids. If I had all the time in the world, I would set the game to full realism, stock up on the munchies and make sure the beer keg is full. But alas, family takes priority and time is the most precious commodity. 

[LukeFF]

In terms of landmarks on the Moscow map, having a city as big as Moscow is a big help, plus there's a fairly large body of water that runs north/south just to the west of it. In my Hurricane career, which has me stationed just outside of Moscow, I find that simply navigating due east towards the city will put me close enough to my airfield to get me home every time.

[SharpeXB]

Yes I always fly in sims without any game aids, icons etc. 

Especially in career, since you’re always flying from the same airfield you can learn to navigate by landmarks. It’s actually quite easy. 

[Yogiflight]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

In terms of landmarks on the Moscow map, having a city as big as Moscow is a big help, plus there's a fairly large body of water that runs north/south just to the west of it. In my Hurricane career, which has me stationed just outside of Moscow, I find that simply navigating due east towards the city will put me close enough to my airfield to get me home every time.

I am not sure, if that helps a lot, if flying on German side

Moscow, when flying an aircraft without homing beacon, is a challenge. I had some missions flying around like crazy, until I found something I safely recognized on the map. Airfields usually is good for orientation. There are not too many of them. Looking where is the next town. How is it shaped? Is there a river?

[twilson37]

This is one of the reasons why I often enjoy flying a JU-52 campaign.  Flying alone, at night, over a snow covered landscape trying to find a drop point over enemy territory with no moving icons is incredibly challenging. 

 

I have been lost several times in campaigns, over both friendly and enemy territory.  I actually really enjoy it constantly looking at the map trying to pick out landmarks wondering if I am going to have to divert to another airbase. 

My recommendation is to try a campaign on the Kuban map from an airbase along the coast with no navigational assistance, generally it is very easy to find your way home.

[ktriggerk0ld]

1 hour ago, twilson37 said:

This is one of the reasons why I often enjoy flying a JU-52 campaign.  Flying alone, at night, over a snow covered landscape trying to find a drop point over enemy territory with no moving icons is incredibly challenging. 

 

I have been lost several times in campaigns, over both friendly and enemy territory.  I actually really enjoy it constantly looking at the map trying to pick out landmarks wondering if I am going to have to divert to another airbase. 

My recommendation is to try a campaign on the Kuban map from an airbase along the coast with no navigational assistance, generally it is very easy to find your way home.

I must say, I admire you, Sir. Someone flying alone, at night, over a snow covered landscape, that's the dedication I don't have  I've tried exactly 2 Pe-2 night bombing missions on the BoM map where you have to fly alone 150km one-way. And then when I couldn't get on target, or anywhere even remotely close to it, I put my bomber career on hold and haven't returned to it yet a few months later.

 

I've never been a "gamer" but the the sheer number of hours I've spent playing IL-2 tells me it's a great Sim that caters to all who are even vaguely interested in aviation and history.

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, twilson37 said:

This is one of the reasons why I often enjoy flying a JU-52 campaign.  Flying alone, at night, over a snow covered landscape trying to find a drop point over enemy territory with no moving icons is incredibly challenging. 

 

I really enjoy those sorts of missions as well.

[Pikestance]

The beauty of the game is the flexibility which allows the game to "accessible" for all sorts of players. Well, in SP. In MP it comes down to interest and desire for someone to create and maintain a dedicated server for the various approaches. The potential is there either way. 

 

When it comes to navigation it often comes down to recognizing the difference between the "zoom" of the map and the height of the aircraft. If there is a difficult terrain, it is the winter map. Features become far more less define. A hard map to read is CLoD map. It is incredibly "busy" looking.