Question about Career difficulty options (any guide what i should be setting for historical accuracy)

[jokash]

I started my first career as Ju52 transport pilot of lowest rank (while waiting for my track ir to arrive).And default starting setting for Moscow begining is low enemy air,low enemy AA,and scatered ground forces.Now i didnt think much of it i thought that was the historical setting (Luftwaffe air superiority in 41).But then i started Il2 career in Moscow begining and the settings were the same.Now is there some guide on how should i setup my career for historical accuracy or are they all just personal preference?

I have a pretty good PC,should i be setting ground forces to many on every career?

[Flying_Anchor]

55 минут назад, jokash сказал:

But then i started Il2 career in Moscow begining and the settings were the same.

Thats right, these are default settings: all is minimal.

Personally, I prefer all max but parity in air and AAA strength.

[Majpalmer]

jokash, I found this "official" response a while back, copied it, and saved it. 

 

Official

Air and AAA Strength determines how skilled enemy and friendly AI flights are, plus it determines how much AAA cover there is over a target you are assigned to attack. Random means the game will choose a setting at random for every mission.

 

Air AI Groups Density controls how many flights are generated on a given mission. Random again makes this a random choice.

 

Front Line Forces controls how dense ground units are on the front lines (and many of these ground units are covered by AA guns, too). Random makes it a random selection every time.

 

As I see it, #1 is the AI difficulty setting. I suspect that if you kick up the enemy AI, which will make things more challenging, you kick down your friendly AI, as well. When I did this while playing a Flying Circus career, it was much tough for me to score and survive. The problem was that my Jasta dropped from 14 pilots to 7 in two days! I'd go up with six and come back with one or two. I don't know what happens in career mode if everyone else is dead.

 

Frankly, for WW2, for the Germans, it should be on easy for the player in 1941. Keep in mind that most pilots of all services, in game terms, sucked. Even during the early successful stages of the Russian campaign in 1941, 80% of German single-seat fighter pilots claimed NO KILLS! The Russians had to be worse. The comparable figure for all US fighter pilots was over 90%! (I think it was 94%.) The reality is that during WW2 the overwhelming majority of fighter pilots never downed an enemy aircraft. 

 

#2 and #3 would reflect three things. 1) How busy do you want the missions? 2) How much stuff flying around can your rig handle? I have an I9 with a 3080ti and I've cranked it up enough to drop my fps from 120 to 75. BTW, I only cranked up the air activity. When things get that busy i don't have time to be watching the ground, and FLAK is an fps killer, at least on my machine. And 3), you could vary those levels of activity to reflect conditions along the front. Obviously, in winter activity dropped. And even in good weather, the tempo of operations varied. 

[jokash]

such weird and clunky settings...does the ground forces density reflect the historical situation on ground.Why is upping the enemy AI skill lower yours?Why isnt there a default/historical setting for each chapter?(then lower maybe for performance issues idk).

[Majpalmer]

It would be great if you could adjust up or down the AI for either side separately. 

 

I usually use Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator for Il-2, whether I'm flying in the Great War or the Second. It allows you to play around with many more parameters. 

 

I highly recommend it. 

[Yogiflight]

20 hours ago, Majpalmer said:

Front Line Forces controls how dense ground units are on the front lines (and many of these ground units are covered by AA guns, too). Random makes it a random selection every time.

And it seems it still controls how many bombers you will encounter in bomber intercept missions. 6, 9 or 12

[jokash]

7 hours ago, Majpalmer said:

It would be great if you could adjust up or down the AI for either side separately. 

 

I usually use Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator for Il-2, whether I'm flying in the Great War or the Second. It allows you to play around with many more parameters. 

 

I highly recommend it. 

Oh definitely a setting at least for both sides,otherwise where is the charm if i select Spanish volunteers squadron in Moscow,(which were made from veteran flyers),if when i want a more competent enemy AI they all get shot down in few missions.

Would be nice if we got maybe recommended settings for both sides when selecting a squadron (based on historical approach)

[Yogiflight]

On 3/17/2024 at 1:36 AM, Majpalmer said:

Air and AAA Strength determines how skilled enemy and friendly AI flights are, plus it determines how much AAA cover there is over a target you are assigned to attack. Random means the game will choose a setting at random for every mission.

And when you are flying a ground attack or bombing mission it decides how many escort fighters you will have. At eastern front easy means 6, parity means 4 and hard means 2 escort fighters.

I am not sure, but it might also decide how many escort fighters enemy ground attack aircrafts and bombers will have.

 

On 3/16/2024 at 10:38 PM, jokash said:

.Now is there some guide on how should i setup my career for historical accuracy or are they all just personal preference?

For ground attack and bomber careers I wouldn't go higher than parity with Air and AAA Strength, as explained above. For all axis careers it should be easy at the beginning of Moscow, for fighter careers I select parity with the Russian counter attack. This makes sense for Stalingrad and the beginning of Kuban as well, but with the Russian counter attack you might change to hard. When flying for the Russian side I would make it vice versa.

For the two western scenarios, hard for the German side and easy for the Allied side.

 

Air AI groups density, in my eyes makes the most sense to go for Random, as IRL the pilots didn't encounter always the same amount of enemy aircrafts as well.

 

The setting for frontline forces mainly depends on what your PC can handle. For fighter careers you don't need a lot of ground units, but for ground attack careers. take as much as your PC allows.