Got any tips for playing on the Finnish multiplayer server?

[moeburn]

I've been playing flight sims for a long time so I can take off and land and hold my own in a dogfight, but I've never played very much online, save for a couple dogfights.

 

Tried recently and had to learn a couple more realism things, like how to navigate by map or find targets without indicators, but I figured it out, and I can fly from my landing strip to the areas marked "tanks" just fine.    I've been choosing the airfields closest to the tank bases because it seems like the shortest flight to some combat.

 

I'm just not sure what to do after that.  I can't seem to find any enemy tanks anywhere, I've spent 2 hours circling low over the areas marked tanks on my map and haven't seen a single one mobile.  I've seen a couple in the dugout sandbag foxholes by the tanks base but that's it. 

 

How the heck do you guys see anything?  I play 1080p on a big 50 inch TV using an Arduino head tracker.  I have been spotted and shot at half a dozen times, including by my own teammates, and I'm always wondering where the heck they came from.  I'm constantly checking my six and scanning the skies but I can't see the dots.  I've tried flying low to make the dots easier to see against the blue sky, but then I'm at an energy disadvantage. 

 

Are there any other tips I should know?

Edited February 4, 2022 by moeburn

[E69_splash99]

+1

[messsucher]

Formation flying with minimum of one another person. He look at your tail and you look at his tail.

Edited February 4, 2022 by messsucher

[JimTM]

Enigma has some videos re. the Finnish server.

 

Re. spotting, you could try a Google search for

    site: https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/ "spotting"

and check out the more recent posts in the results.

 

Note that there have been rare instances in the past of invisible planes on some MP servers but I'm not sure if this is an issue lately.

Edited February 4, 2022 by JimTM

[Thorne]

The first sorties in multiplayer are often discouraging, don't give up.

 

First off I'd by lying if I said I was a particularly good player as far as K/D is concerned, that aside I've reached the point where I'm comfortable finding targets, spotting enemies, navigating too and from airfields successfully and generally "knowing what's going on".

 

The first thing that I would recommend focusing on is dead reckoning -- knowing where you are and where you're going makes it much easier to both spot, and identify aircraft and land targets through positional context. If you know your own position relative to the front, enemy and friendly airbases, and ground targets, you will be able to predict where enemies will most likely be approaching from and loitering, then prioritize scanning those areas of the sky.

 

Your sense of orientation will also allow you to infer a lot more about contacts that are seen at a distance based on their speed, altitude, and heading, eg: see a smoking contact on the deck who is headed deep behind friendly lines? Probably a banged up friendly limping back to base -- assuming that do we see anyone behind him that looks like they could be chasing? Maybe an enemy, maybe escorting friendly; I would go check out the chasing contact first. The only way you can draw these conclusions is by knowing where you are, which way leads deeper into allied territory, and what the approximate heading is to the nearest allied airbase at any given moment.

 

tldr; if you focus and being oriented most of the time spotting will come.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Thorne

[ShamrockOneFive]

6 hours ago, moeburn said:

How the heck do you guys see anything?  I play 1080p on a big 50 inch TV using an Arduino head tracker.  I have been spotted and shot at half a dozen times, including by my own teammates, and I'm always wondering where the heck they came from.  I'm constantly checking my six and scanning the skies but I can't see the dots.  I've tried flying low to make the dots easier to see against the blue sky, but then I'm at an energy disadvantage. 

 

Spotting is a skill in itself. It's a combination of knowing exactly what dot to look for (versus all of those other dots) while also building up your situational awareness and assessing the tactical situation. This is aided greatly by having a wingman. Two spotters is more than doubly effective as two people scanning the skies and the ground will cross over and converge while also giving you far better visibility to the rear. Add a third or fourth wingman and this really boosts your ability to spot and engage targets effectively.

 

A little luck helps too. There are times, especially when the server is full, where you can easily get overwhelmed and making it out in one piece becomes excessively difficult.

[Guest deleted@83466]

Well, I haven’t played online in many months until last night, having set up new computer to do it.  I didn’t suck as much as I thought I would, but it was tough going solo.  Good thing Dora 9 is fast and relatively durable.  Even if you don’t see any friendlies they are there.  Got saved a couple of times by friendly wildcard fighters that came in and engaged when I was on the ropes.

[conure]

First of all, do you have FOV zoom bound? If not, this is essential. As you scan the sky it's important to zoom in to help overcome the limitations of a flat screen. So bind fov zoom in and fov normal to reset your view. I promise you many of those people seeing you first are doing this!

 

I'm new to multiplayer but joined a squad who are quite competitive / experienced and have given me lots of good advice.

 

The first is, as others have said, to fly with a wingman. That said, I still like to fly solo when others aren't about and the following rules work very well for me.

 

1: Survival, not kills, is the goal of every sortie for me. If you get back to base having crossed enemy lines it's a success. 0 deaths 0 kills is, imo, superior to 1 kill 1 death. Fly like it's your real life - not because you're larping and sat at your PC wearing a flight suit and performing G manouvres, but because that mentality will keep you alive and improve your situational awareness. So my advice is initially to focus on staying alive as opposed to looking for kills. 

 

2: Keep your energy advantage at all times. Stay high, stay fast and have an escape strategy (I.e can you dive into clouds, or escape into the sun?).

 

If you're at 20,000ft in a 109 at 500kph you have a much better chance of escape if you find yourself in an unfavourable situation. If you're flying around on deck then sure, you're harder to see in clutter, but others can and will spot you and they will have an energy advantage.

 

You're a sitting duck on the deck, and you're relying on luck (i.e not being seen) rather than a superior energy state. Some enemies will sit 10km from your airfield and watch you takeoff and stay low in ground clutter. Then it's simply a matter of following you for a while and diving down.

 

3: Practice spotting on a server like Combat Box Training Server. I spent quite a few hours in the drone area practising my sky scan. I'll look into a section of sky, zoom in, hold still and look for movement, then move onto the next. Turn this into muscle memory and run it on a loop. Initially practice it defensively. In line with point 1, it's more important to see potential attackers than potential targets. So make sure you're checking that high and low six regularly (every 30 seconds).h

 

4: Don't dogfight! If you're alone you don't have the luxury of hanging around waiting, because the other birds of prey will see your gunfire and drop down on you whilst you're in a low energy state. Dive in, keep your speed up and let off one salvo of guns (this is why it's really important to have good gunnery, you can practice this elsewhere). If you've missed the target (or hit it), do not turn! Enter a shallow climb (or stay on the horizontal plane for a while) and keep your speed up, because most likely others will be bearing down on you now.

 

Remember, it's more important to survive than get a kill. If you missed the target, you need to improve your gunnery (and so do I )

 

5: Forget the concept of "boom and zoom" Vs "turn fighter" when solo. Fly everything as though it's boom and zoom - i.e keep your energy state very high. Whether it's a Hurricane Mkii or a FW190A8, it's better to be in a high energy state with lots of potential energy than it is to be making 20 second full circle turns on the deck. If you're flying a so called turn fighter and a "boom n zoom" plane performs an attack on you whilst following the points in point 4, all the turning ability in the world isn't going to help you. He/she has the advantage, he/she dictates the fight, and you're once again relying on luck.

 

 

Anyway, like I said, I'm still relatively new, but I've received this advice from highly experienced players and it works very well. It definitely requires discipline, but these tactics worked well in the real world too.

 

Definitely find a group to fly with though - it'll change the game.

 

To any of the experienced players - very happy to have my above points critiqued or corrected as I am also looking to improve

 

 

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by conure

[SYN_Ricky]

14 hours ago, moeburn said:

I'm just not sure what to do after that.  I can't seem to find any enemy tanks anywhere, I've spent 2 hours circling low over the areas marked tanks on my map and haven't seen a single one mobile.  I've seen a couple in the dugout sandbag foxholes by the tanks base but that's it. 

On Finnish server, the icons marked "tanks" are tank spawn points. You might find enemy tanks nearby if a player just left the spawn, otherwise you better check around friendly ground forces on the front. Tank fire is quite is easy to spot from the air. If enemy tanks are nearby friendly tank spawn points or airfields, there will be a red tank icon with the number of tanks attacking. Same goes with enemy planes. That's a good way to check if there are  enemy planes/tanks over an objective.

[Luftschiff]

It should also be noted that tanks are very very hard to spot, especially since they're not typically big formations of tanks, but a single, dark green T34 driven cleverly by a player somewhere in the forest. I've successfully spotted player tanks like twice in the past year, though to be fair I wasn't actively looking. Don't be discouraged.

 

Spotting planes is not so much a question of settings or tricks, but a skill you'll aquire over time. You'll have to check parts of the sky or ground methodically, spending at least a few seconds on each part before moving your head. Enemy fighters will typically be high, bombers low. If you're me, fighters will always be right behind you and half a second from firing.

[Crocogator]

On 2/5/2022 at 5:54 PM, conure said:

You're a sitting duck on the deck, and you're relying on luck (i.e not being seen) rather than a superior energy state. Some enemies will sit 10km from your airfield and watch you takeoff and stay low in ground clutter. Then it's simply a matter of following you for a while and diving down.

 

I have just started on MP and this is the scariest thought I've had so far. This would explain the 109s appearing at my tail at 4000m.

[Traffic]

I'm on the verge to start. I dont have the hardware for mixture controls and rpm and stuff and it seems every server is manual engine control. So, I think I need to buy a throttle quadrant, in addition to the stick and throttle I already have, just for more key mapping. I bought a headset, registered on Discord and started reading their forums. This is way more complicated than I thought it would be. And after being out of flight sims for 20 years, I'm finding this whole process is different. The days of inserting a disk are long over. I had no idea. 

 

I've watched many YouTube vids on teams of 4 or 5 all flying together and communicating everything. It seems flying solo is a 1 way mission that lasts 2 minutes on some of these servers. 

 

I feel like Im a fairly capable pilot and prefer weed whacking ground targets as opposed dog fighting, but it is what it is. 

[Drum]

<I fully endorse this statement, although your personal experience will differ when flying in a legion.>

 

The place gives me an eerie feeling after takeoff, it's like I'm flying on an empty server right up until my bombs detonated, then <snaps fingers> like decloaking Klingons the whole sky is suddenly filled with planes, all struggling to stave off compression as a desperate race to get at me first unfolds.  Like me, there's only two words that will help change your on-line solo experience; Combat Box...

2 hours ago, T241Traffic241 said:

I'm on the verge to start. I dont have the hardware for mixture controls and rpm and stuff and it seems every server is manual engine control. So, I think I need to buy a throttle quadrant, in addition to the stick and throttle I already have, just for more key mapping. I bought a headset, registered on Discord and started reading their forums. This is way more complicated than I thought it would be. And after being out of flight sims for 20 years, I'm finding this whole process is different. The days of inserting a disk are long over. I had no idea. 

 

I've watched many YouTube vids on teams of 4 or 5 all flying together and communicating everything. It seems flying solo is a 1 way mission that lasts 2 minutes on some of these servers. 

 

I feel like Im a fairly capable pilot and prefer weed whacking ground targets as opposed dog fighting, but it is what it is. 

 

[Crocogator]

I find, being a noob, and a solo marauder who gets into trouble a lot, that staying on the deck lets you spot targets very easily since they're contrasted with the sky. You need to be fast if you're down there though. Staying above clouds also does a similar thing,since below you is contrasted against white. It's picking targets against the ground that's hard.