Interesting thing happened

[DocDocbruno]

I was heading home in my 109 after an escort mission when I spotted an IL2 loitering around.  The sky was clear of enemy fighters so I went after him and shot him full of holes until expending my ammo.  He then turned on me and followed me halfway back to Tusov.  That Sturmovik performed like a Yak, turning with me every time I reversed course, climbed with me and etc, etc.  I can only surmise that the game was confused.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Please post track files whenever reporting things such as this.  Without those, nobody including the Devs is able to tell you why this happened.

 

One thing you should be aware of though, is that the IL2 historically was a surprisingly agile aircraft. In the hands of a good pilot and without a heavy payload, it wouldn't surprise me if it could easily outturn a 109.

[DocDocbruno]

I am "aware" of that but this one performed like a fighter plane.  As to why it happened, I really do not care.  It reminded me of the time nine He111s flew halfway to their target and then changed course 90 degrees and flew in the direction of the Caspian Sea.  They literally flew off the game map and into oblivion.   

But since you mentioned it, WTH is a track file?

 

Thanks

[Jaegermeister]

8 hours ago, DocDocbruno said:

WTH is a track file?

 

 

A recorded video track of the mission. When you copy the 2 matching track files out of your data/tracks folder and post them, the mission can then be recreated and viewed to see what happened.

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

I'm not exactly sure what the differences in AI working in a team during career missions is in comparison to 1v1 Quick Mission combat but, it sounds like that IL-2 went into 1v1 mode with you.

 

For example, set up the following:  

 

Quick Mission >  1v1 Duel  > Your plane and loadout > give yourself unlimited ammo and invulnerability in difficulty settings.

Enemy plane: random Axis /random Allies.   AI Skill: RANDOM.   Number of enemies:  infinite.  

Give the both of you a decent amount of starting altitude too.

Some enemies will be easy but, some planes that should realistically not fly very well will make you sweat buckets fighting them.  

 

I personally get a laugh at the He-111s, Ju-88s and Me-110s.  I'm sure there's other "pigs" on the Allies list that go full-on Top Gun too.

It's not so much that they did or didn't fly well in reality, it's that the moves they do should be highly dangerous to crew who may or may not have adequate safety belts, hand holds and body supports - none of which the game takes into consideration under the pilot/crew physiology category. 

Whether the flight models are correct (or not) they should still be unable to pull some of those slick aerobatics if it's going to make the crew members sustain injury or death getting rattled around like peanuts in a can.

 

And before you tell me: "Post tracks"...   I don't have Tester as part of my forum status.  I've given the parameters.  If you feel inclined, or are a community Tester, knock your socks off. See for yourself.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

9 hours ago, DocDocbruno said:

I am "aware" of that but this one performed like a fighter plane.  As to why it happened, I really do not care.  It reminded me of the time nine He111s flew halfway to their target and then changed course 90 degrees and flew in the direction of the Caspian Sea.  They literally flew off the game map and into oblivion.  

Oh, you're talking about behaviour rather than performance. Right, now I understand what you mean. In "mission writing talk" it kinda sounds like the IL2 was issued an Attack MCU targeting the player. This may be intentional or not; given that the IL2 was a relatively maneuverable aircraft, several of its pilots are known to have taken a more aggressive approach. See this site for instance:

Quote

A. N Efimov for instance was a famous dogfighter with 58 aerial dogfights with the enemy and 7 victories plus 85 other destroyed planes on the ground. For 288 "successeful" combat missions.

 

It's very possible this is some bug in the mission generation scripts after all though - here too, you should post a track file the next time something like this happens

 

38 minutes ago, Mobile_BBQ said:

I'm not exactly sure what the differences in AI working in a team during career missions is in comparison to 1v1 Quick Mission combat but, it sounds like that IL-2 went into 1v1 mode with you.

 

For example, set up the following:  

 

Quick Mission >  1v1 Duel  > Your plane and loadout > give yourself unlimited ammo and invulnerability in difficulty settings.

There is no difference in AI; there is a difference in mission scripting. The Quick Mission battles are meant for air vs air combat, so all enemies are explicitly ordered to attack you, regardless of their type. You may question the sensibility of this decision, but it's working exactly as intended. If you want to see more realistic behaviour, you should play either Scripted Missions or Campaigns, the Career, or the Advanced Quick Mission Builder.

 

14 minutes ago, Mobile_BBQ said:

And before you tell me: "Post tracks"...   I don't have Tester as part of my forum status.  I've given the parameters.  If you feel inclined, or are a community Tester, knock your socks off. See for yourself.

Recording tracks is not meant for Devs or Testers, recording tracks is meant exactly for "normal players" so that the Devs are able to see what happens. The randomly generated missions depend on tens or hundreds of parameters and have millions of possible options, and even then a given mission may play out differently every time. I hope you don't seriously expect the Devs to spend weeks on end re-generating and re-playing the same mission over and over again because in one of its iterations, something might go wrong?

[DocDocbruno]

Gentlemen, thanks for your comments but too much is being made of my original post.  I said an "Interesting thing happened."  Because this is a "game", the latest version of which I've been "flying" for 4 and 1/2 years, I'm not concerned about it.  Yes, a track file is a recording.  Got it, but it'll have to be one helluva hilarious screw-up before I bother recording.

 

However, regarding flight characteristics, has any one of the developers flown an IL2, He111, Tempest V or Longnose 190?  Performance/handling characteristics of Bf109s, Spits, and Mustangs are well known but what about the others?  I've flown short missions in the Tempest and 190D and they are really slick, practically fly themselves and are a world advanced from the shaky 109G2.  The point is who decides how these characteristics are simulated and aren't they mostly based on written specifications and memories of pilots long departed?  Just asking with no intent of criticizing the developers or anyone's sensitivities... 

Edited October 1, 2023 by DocDocbruno

[IckyATLAS]

16 hours ago, DocDocbruno said:

However, regarding flight characteristics, has any one of the developers flown an IL2, He111, Tempest V or Longnose 190?  Performance/handling characteristics of Bf109s, Spits, and Mustangs are well known but what about the others?  I've flown short missions in the Tempest and 190D and they are really slick, practically fly themselves and are a world advanced from the shaky 109G2.  The point is who decides how these characteristics are simulated and aren't they mostly based on written specifications and memories of pilots long departed?  Just asking with no intent of criticizing the developers or anyone's sensitivities... 

 

 

Who decides? The Executive Producer together with the Devs. They will decide if to model an airplane and if there is enough information, enough resources to be able to make a credible, believable object model and flight model. There is also cost/benefit analysis, which has eliminated the B17 and quad engine bombers as an example. Too complex and too costly for the type of quality that can be expected in this game.

 

Nobody's perfect. You are right, the Devs (and us by the way) don't fly those planes daily, and for sure not in a stressfully combat situation, and not with the available low quality fuel at that time, as well as with planes that were battered and which engines were pushed to the limit and serviced with whatever there was on hand to plug holes and have pipes not leaking fluid etc.  

 

The simulated model is much more perfect and that is unavoidable. Now we must give credit to the devs who do a very extensive research before deciding to build the model and simulate its behavior. The will try to find all the published data, as well as pilots who published their experience. Sometimes you do have interviews of pilots that had hands-on experience of the plane during WWII. Many are not anymore of this world and so this kind of direct experience is now becoming very rare. After all WWII was nearly 80 years ago. So, pilots in their twenties should have over a 100 years. Not many left in a good enough shape unfortunately.

 

Those of us who are lucky or rich enough to afford to fly as a pilot (not passenger) vintage airplanes like the P51s, BF109 etc. may relate to some feelings and emotions , but these are planes with much less wing load, modern avionics very often better systems as they have been restored, reliable and well serviced engines and are flown very gently to avoid too many Gs as these are collection aircraft that must last. Reno races maybe different but these are very transformed planes. Even the most recent flight experience will be very different. Even takeoff an landing at high wing load is more prone to accidents and in flight to dynamic stalls at high speed. So, nobody will test this except in the very modern aerobatic planes.

 

The Devs do the best they can and up to now I think they have been able to find a good compromise to make the game globally "credible". 

 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by IckyATLAS

[354thFG_Panda_]

18 hours ago, DocDocbruno said:

Gentlemen, thanks for your comments but too much is being made of my original post.  I said an "Interesting thing happened."  Because this is a "game", the latest version of which I've been "flying" for 4 and 1/2 years, I'm not concerned about it.  Yes, a track file is a recording.  Got it, but it'll have to be one helluva hilarious screw-up before I bother recording.

 

However, regarding flight characteristics, has any one of the developers flown an IL2, He111, Tempest V or Longnose 190?  Performance/handling characteristics of Bf109s, Spits, and Mustangs are well known but what about the others?  I've flown short missions in the Tempest and 190D and they are really slick, practically fly themselves and are a world advanced from the shaky 109G2.  The point is who decides how these characteristics are simulated and aren't they mostly based on written specifications and memories of pilots long departed?  Just asking with no intent of criticizing the developers or anyone's sensitivities... 

 

They may not have flown the aircraft but there is a lot of data and technical information in technical report servers on the web as well as archives with even more evaluations and reports. There is data for the lesser known aircraft even if not as popular. These may be things like level speed performance charts, wind tunnel tests or engine power charts.

 

The Devs put a lot of care inputting the data of the aircraft into the simulation, modelling the forces and inertia. 

 

A great interview with the lead engineer Gavrick who talks about flight modelling process. (Its in Russian so use translated subtitles)

 

 

 

Image from the official about section which has more info on what they use to simulate the aircraft:

https://il2sturmovik.com/about/

Edited October 2, 2023 by Red_Panda

[LukeFF]

3 hours ago, Red_Panda said:

 

They may not have flown the aircraft but there is a lot of data and technical information in technical report servers on the web as well as archives with even more evaluations and reports. There is data for the lesser known aircraft even if not as popular. These may be things like level speed performance charts, wind tunnel tests or engine power charts.

 

The Devs put a lot of care inputting the data of the aircraft into the simulation, modelling the forces and inertia. 

 

A great interview with the lead engineer Gavrick who talks about flight modelling process. (Its in Russian so use translated subtitles)

 

 

 

Image from the official about section which has more info on what they use to simulate the aircraft:

https://il2sturmovik.com/about/

 

eBay is also a great source of information. I've been helping out the team with some stuff on that front for the past few months.