The career settings don't make sense.

[Kubert]

I spent three evenings trying to balance career options for IL-2 pilot and I am giving up. From my testing it seems there is no way to make dangerous AAA with reasonable fighter opposition...which was my goal. 

 

Now we have three options. Power Balance, Air Forces and AAA, Ground Forces.

 

Power Balance increase or decrease everything. AAA and number of planes tied to mission.

Air Forces and AAA should increase or decrease flights not tied to mission, but from my observation it has no effect on number of AAA at all, or at least not on those in target area.

Ground Forces...I don't know. Only difference what I've seen was more or less enemy positions on the map. Those Red and Blue circles on the map. If that's true then this option is useless because those "extra" positions from Numerous setting are so far from mission route, that its make them irrelevant and they only drain CPU usage.

 

Now, what I tried? Many missions, but as reference point can now serve mission Attack Troops near Stalingrad.

 

Test 1: Power Balance: Enemy Inferiority, Air Forces and AAA: Numerous, Ground Forces: Medium

Expectations: Weak air opposition, dangerous flak.

Result: Small number of blind AAAs. Our escort had numerical advantage, managed to suppress four BF-109s and shoot down three nearby Hs-129s. Two of eight IL-2s were destroyed by BF-109s. AAAs didn't hit anything, even when one AAA did shoot at IL directly above him. Tracers passed between IL's wing and elevator without any harm. This test was very easy with almost no threat, despite two losses...main reason was lack of AAAs.

 

Test 2: Power Balance: Parity, Air Forces and AAA: Numerous, Ground Forces: Medium 

Expectations: Equal air opposition, dangerous flak.

Result: Now, at beginning, it looked as I expected. Some heavy flak on approach, more light flak during strifing. Some of AAAs was suppresed, but there were still enough, so dodging was necessary. Half of the ILs was hit, one destroyed...simply, it felt as real IL-2 experience. Until we were about half way home. From somewhere 4 new BFs appeared and deleted our entire flight. I replayed, or better said, rewatched again and those 4 BFs had laser focus on us even when I flown above our territory and far from waypoint. I tried the same mission more times, with various ways how to avoid them...unsuccessfuly.

 

I did various tests on all three maps. And result was the same. Power Balance controls everything, Air Forces and AAA in reality don't control AAA in target area and Ground Forces seems to have no impact at all. If I set Enemy Inferiority, I get braindead AAA and air opposition as I want...meaning dangerous, but not over the top, still possible for my escort to take care of. If I set it to Parity, I always get AAA as I want but air opposition is over the top and kills everyone mid way home. Or at least in missions I tried they did. Flight of four BFs or pair with gunpods just fly directly at me from accross the map doesn't matter if I follow waypoints or avoiding them. They simply know how to find me, it looks like I am their waypoint or something. 

 

So my questions are: 

1. Why are air opposition and AAA tied together under Power Balance option? It is impossible to make flak heavy environment without deadly fighters. 

2. What AAA in Air Forces and AAA mean? Where are those increased AAAs if not around target?

3. Would be possible to split air opposition and AAAs from Power Balance and made separate options for them? Or add AAAs from target area into Air Forces and AAA setting instead Power Balance?

 

For now, only option to play as IL-2 without having entire flight killed every second mission is to play at Power Balance: Enemy Inferiority. Flak will be less dangerous as kid with a stick, but mission will be more immersive than 80-100% casualty rate all the time.

Edited October 23 by Kubert

[IckyATLAS]

It is all a matter of compromise and the what was initially in the coding. I mean what parameters do you have to control each individual Fighter plane capability, fighter or bomber groups, same for each AAA unit, truck, ship, train etc. It has been discussed a lot over the years and I also tested it a lot too. Unfortunately it is not as good as we would like. As an example the pilot skill and gunners actions are combined in one parameter and you cannot distinguish. So if you want a very bad IL2 pilot but an excellent gunner, you cannot set it. There are little parameters, sometimes confusing, sometimes they interfere, let's say that all that thing is far from optimal. Does it impact later on when you design missions and careers. Sure it does, but things have to be simplified otherwise the design of a career may become too costly to design and implement. It has to be playable for most and with a little customization that will never be ideal. You need repetition with some randomness but again this is to speed up development.

Overall it is not too bad and enjoyable for most, which is finally what counts.

Now if you want to enter the rabbit hole and enjoy designing a campaign, career and scripted missions then you will understand very well what can be done or not. Let's be honest you can do an awful lot but yes some limitations are very frustrating. We must make with what we have.

 

[Kubert]

I don't have intention to be nitpicky or tweak AI skill level to detail. That's why I didn't mention AI at all. I am interested in simple thing...if AAA numbers and enemy air force numbers tied to mission could be under different settings. I don't even care that their skill level goes up with numbers, even when I am aware of that. 

 

So no rabbit hole intended...just surface level settings, without any detailed tweaks. 

[Calos_01]

Have you tried to increase power balance and decrease numbers? Some of my fighter careers I have set power balance to enemy superiority and air forces and AAA to medium or scattered. I’ m quite satisfied with it. 

[Kubert]

Yes, I did. Every time I set Power Balance to Parity, it has devastating effect on my flight because of enemy fighters. Even when I set Air Forces and AAA to scattered. That is exactly how I found Air Forces and AAA have no impact on AAA in target area.

 

If we talk about fighter career...even with Power Balance at Parity, and Air Forces and AAA at Numerous it is fine, because as fighter we can defend ourselves and even win against enemy fighters and we don't need to care how many of enemy AAA is in the area. What I wrote as the topic was specific for ground attack career. With current settings it is impossible to make the same level of immersion as in a fighter career. Because is impossible to increase numbers of AAA in target area and decrease numbers of enemy fighters at the same time.

Edited October 24 by Kubert

[Kubert]

5 hours ago, Calos_01 said:

Have you tried to increase power balance and decrease numbers?

After I answered you, I started to think "did I really tested this combination or I avoided it thinking it will decrease AAA numbers even more?". I probably need to take notes next time.  So just to be sure I played 5 mission in row more or less as you recommended, with Power Balance: Parity, Air Forces and AAA: Scattered, Ground Forces: Medium and to my surprise those mission were challenging but not impossible. Worst losses we had were 4 of 8 from various causes (2x collision, 1x BF, 1x AA) plus me heavily damaged... 

 

 

It looks that "butcher" squad of four BFs guided at me in previous tests was triggered by combination of Parity and Air Forces and AAA set to Medium. Or by something else. I think for the best immersion and survival rate of both player and squadron will be switching between two Difficulty presets:

 

Power Balance: Enemy Inferiority

Air Forces and AAA: Numerous

Ground Forces: Medium

 

and 

 

Power Balance: Parity

Air Forces and AAA: Scattered

Ground Forces: Medium 

 

If first will be used as default, and second only once for let's say 3 or 4 missions, that should make balanced IL-2 experience with more or less believable losses and adequate challenge.

 

I still think Power Balance should be divided into at least two settings and ideally to four: Air Force Density, Air Force Skill, AAA Density, AAA Skill. This is probably everything I had to say. 

[AcesDarthBubu]

I tend to play with settings :

 

Power Balance: Random

Air Forces and AAA: Numerous

Ground Forces: Numerous 

 

Out of 10 missions I played,  only 3 or less has fighters interceptions, rest of the missions are without any fighters opposition, while having concentrated AAA near target site, once I switched to power balance at Parity, my flight was faced with 8 enemy fighters. Of course killing my player pilot.

 

For me, I prefer not knowing the type of opposition I will be facing. What are the recommendations on settings while having the immersion of a war is going on instead of many peaceful sight seeing flights ?

Edited October 25 by AcesDarthBubu

[Kubert]

My understanding of Random Power Balance is that it randomly picks Enemy Inferiority, Parity or Superiority...am I right or it works differently? I never used that because I was afraid it generates Enemy Superiority and wipes us out completely. Now I don't know if it works differently as I think or you were just very lucky. Do you know? Or do anyone know how it works?  

[AcesDarthBubu]

2 hours ago, Kubert said:

My understanding of Random Power Balance is that it randomly picks Enemy Inferiority, Parity or Superiority...am I right or it works differently? I never used that because I was afraid it generates Enemy Superiority and wipes us out completely. Now I don't know if it works differently as I think or you were just very lucky. Do you know? Or do anyone know how it works?  

You are right, or at least I think it should behave as such that the game will auto pick a power balance at random. But my experience is that it always skewed towards inferior or none as many missions dont have any air enemies at all. Although real life documentary do mention most missions are without engagement.

 

Not a direct comparison but against my PWCG experience, that mod varies the number of planes within a flight group and the enemy FG exists within the mission box. Which gave more encounter opportunities and has more ground units both friendly/enemies and not appearing randomly.

 

 

Edited October 25 by AcesDarthBubu

[MDzmitry]

25.10.2025 в 09:20, AcesDarthBubu сказал:

You are right, or at least I think it should behave as such that the game will auto pick a power balance at random. But my experience is that it always skewed towards inferior or none as many missions dont have any air enemies at all. Although real life documentary do mention most missions are without engagement.

I play all my careers on Random. From what I've read, this option varies the amount of enemies, but only within the specific range (from min to max) set contextually by the map and time period. 

 

Still, if you want to check the availability of enemies to fight you can always experiment by using the Ctrl+f2 combination to set your camera on an enemy plane. What I've found is that most commonly there is at least some enemy flight in the vicinity, the question is whether you can spot and engage each other.

Edited October 26 by MDzmitry

[Kubert]

2 hours ago, MDzmitry said:

From what I've read, this option varies the amount of enemies, but only within the specific range (from min to max) set contextually by the map and time period. 

That sounds great. Did you play many careers with Random settings? Did you experience something stupid, like...8 planes in friendly flight vs 16-20 enemies or so? 

 

I found this 2 years old Reddit post:

Edited October 26 by Kubert

[MDzmitry]

17 минут назад, Kubert сказал:

That sounds great. Did you play many careers with Random settings? Did you experience something stupid, like...8 planes in friendly flight vs 16-20 enemies or so? 

Currently I've stuck only to Allied/Soviet careers, both always on Random, around 3-4 for the Western front and 2-3 for Moscow. In all cases I either had peaceful sorties or had to face approx. the same amount of enemy fighters as was in my flight. Add to that different tasks like interceptions, where (as an example) we need to stop 6-8 fighter-bombers covered by 4-6 109s. Or the opposite, with occasional interceptions of a single recon plane by a flight of 4 Allies.

 

Currently at the Ardennes, most common sortie type is frontline patrol, what I've spotted using Ctrl+f2 is a common combination of a flight of fighter-bombers without cover (~6 190s) which usually gets intercepted by another friendly AI squadron (commonly around 4-8 Mk.XIV Spitfires), a flight of support fighters also around 4-6 fighters (109s/190s) and a pair or 2 pairs of "free hunters" (typically 109s) commonly cruising quite a bit higher and to the side. On some occasions they attacked my flights, on most we didn't spot each other.

 

The harshest I've had it on Random was a bit into D-Day, say D-day+3, when my squadron was based in France and the distance to the frontline was only ~10 miles. My flights often got attacked by free hunters and support fighters while still trying to gain enough altitude, so that was harsh, but that's just how it goes. Typically if there's plenty of enemies there also are friendly AI squads, be it Americans or Brits (I saw P-38s, P-51s, P-47s, Tempests, Mk.IX, Mk.V and Mk.XIV Spits, all kinds of aircraft).

Around Moscow the same logic applies, but out of friendly squadrons I also got to see pairs of "free hunters" flying P-40s.

Edited October 26 by MDzmitry

[Kubert]

That's sounds interesting, maybe I will try it in the future. 

[RedeyeStorm]

For more interesting AAA take a look at the AAA mods of Stonehouse. Works only in SP off course. He has a mod that extends the tange AAA spot you, aim at you, and start firing sooner. He also has a kind of large caliber Flak generator that makes heavy flak cannons generate a bigger flak field. More looks then threat but that is okay because all the flak focuses on one plane. Makes for great atmosphere.

 

He has a lot of interesting mods.