As I said, Il-2 is a large enough mass of frustration as it is.
Any harder and I simply quit flying it.
Realism Settings For our IL-2 flying
Moderator: RLG MGMT Team
Well if that's the case, I guess leave things as is. Frankly, I think labels off in a furball is more realistic because that is exactly when you will have trouble knowing who's who in game...and in real life. And you will have to take a moment to figure out, and IFF someone. I mean, pilots used to practice for months identifying planes before they got behind the stick for the real deal.
Still I hear what you're saying about the AI having the unfair IFF advantage. It can be tough even with the labels on, as I'm sure most of us will agree. Jedi, you happen to be one of the best pilots in the game, what's your air to air kill ratio? I'm willing to bet it's 3/1 easy. I know mine is like 2/1 and sometimes I get lucky and take 3 or even four out before the bastards get me. So you gotta be up there.
Still I hear what you're saying about the AI having the unfair IFF advantage. It can be tough even with the labels on, as I'm sure most of us will agree. Jedi, you happen to be one of the best pilots in the game, what's your air to air kill ratio? I'm willing to bet it's 3/1 easy. I know mine is like 2/1 and sometimes I get lucky and take 3 or even four out before the bastards get me. So you gotta be up there.
More stick time wouldn't go amiss over here either - but I could certainly improve things somewhat, simply by being less kamikazi in my approach. 
It is not the technique that wins a fight, but the more furious mind - Kodiak WOF
You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question! - Gen Honore, New Orleans Sep 05
You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question! - Gen Honore, New Orleans Sep 05
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Jedi Master
- Posts: 1362
- Joined: 11 Feb 2004, 14:32
- Location: Melbourne, FL
I never leave my views static. To maintain SA I'm constantly going through cockpit on/off and outside views.
There's a guy named Andy Bush on SimHQ...well, he's not around much anymore, but he used to run the place...and he's a former F-104/F-4/A-10 pilot who flew combat in Vietnam. He said that when he flies he likes to turn off the cockpit and use external padlock. He said limiting yourself to be in the cockpit only is FAR harder than fighting in real life due to other limitations. While in a real plane it's easy to know the orientation of your plane compared to the one you're fighting with by the position of your head (which you just instinctively feel), you get disoriented far too easily with padlock inside a cockpit. The exception is Falcon 4, who has that side bar in padlock view that helps you keep track of that stuff.
He and other pilots I've seen (Hammfist, another A-10 flier) mention they turn off the cockpit because it restricts your forward view too much. When they fly, they literally saw nothing but the HUD when looking forward...the cockpit was always "heads down".
When I worked for a small company a few years back, the boss had his own Piper Aztec, little twin-engined plane. I had to fly with him a couple of times from Ft Lauderdale to Daytona and back, and I would sit in the co-pilot seat. It is just amazing how much easier it is to pick up other planes and details on the ground than in a PC game. We flew at around 6000 ft I believe, and it was easy to pick out movement on the highways. You couldn't ID anything beyond "big truck" or "car", but once you were below 2000 ft that was easy enough. When looking forward, the massive control panel simply disappeared below your POV as you looked out. I practiced padlocking onto another plane that would be a few miles away while the boss made a turn to land or whatever, and it was easy to know which way the plane was facing, to FEEL whether we were climbing or descending or which way the plane was turning, all while still keeping track of the other plane.
Was IFF easy? Not really. Unfortunately few sims support neutral labels, that don't tell you which side they're on. LOMAC can if you alter one of the .cfg files. You can change the RGB values for friendly and enemy labels to whatever you wish, including making them both the same color. You can also change it so you have to be within 10km to get a name assigned to it so you can't say, "Ah, a Hind!" at 40km.
I suppose if I had TrackIR I might be able to fly with the cockpit on more, but I'd still use external views for certain things, simply because otherwise you're making it harder on yourself!
Consider also that in WWII pilots were sent into combat with only a couple of dozen hours stick time, not hundreds. Some of them became aces and lived to tell about it. How many of us are able to complete mission after mission in Il-2 without being shot down when we have far more virtual flying hours under our belt?
I'll not get into the unrealistic behavior of AI in most flight sims here--how they'll disregard their own safety in an attempt to shoot you down when you're not a threat to them or their objectives but still get fixated on you and fight to the death all the time. But that also makes things harder than real life.
I simply look for ways to even out the imbalance. I mean, if I NEVER got shot down in Il-2 and careened around the sky with 5 AA kills and several AG kills every mission, I would agree it was too easy. However...
There's a guy named Andy Bush on SimHQ...well, he's not around much anymore, but he used to run the place...and he's a former F-104/F-4/A-10 pilot who flew combat in Vietnam. He said that when he flies he likes to turn off the cockpit and use external padlock. He said limiting yourself to be in the cockpit only is FAR harder than fighting in real life due to other limitations. While in a real plane it's easy to know the orientation of your plane compared to the one you're fighting with by the position of your head (which you just instinctively feel), you get disoriented far too easily with padlock inside a cockpit. The exception is Falcon 4, who has that side bar in padlock view that helps you keep track of that stuff.
He and other pilots I've seen (Hammfist, another A-10 flier) mention they turn off the cockpit because it restricts your forward view too much. When they fly, they literally saw nothing but the HUD when looking forward...the cockpit was always "heads down".
When I worked for a small company a few years back, the boss had his own Piper Aztec, little twin-engined plane. I had to fly with him a couple of times from Ft Lauderdale to Daytona and back, and I would sit in the co-pilot seat. It is just amazing how much easier it is to pick up other planes and details on the ground than in a PC game. We flew at around 6000 ft I believe, and it was easy to pick out movement on the highways. You couldn't ID anything beyond "big truck" or "car", but once you were below 2000 ft that was easy enough. When looking forward, the massive control panel simply disappeared below your POV as you looked out. I practiced padlocking onto another plane that would be a few miles away while the boss made a turn to land or whatever, and it was easy to know which way the plane was facing, to FEEL whether we were climbing or descending or which way the plane was turning, all while still keeping track of the other plane.
Was IFF easy? Not really. Unfortunately few sims support neutral labels, that don't tell you which side they're on. LOMAC can if you alter one of the .cfg files. You can change the RGB values for friendly and enemy labels to whatever you wish, including making them both the same color. You can also change it so you have to be within 10km to get a name assigned to it so you can't say, "Ah, a Hind!" at 40km.
I suppose if I had TrackIR I might be able to fly with the cockpit on more, but I'd still use external views for certain things, simply because otherwise you're making it harder on yourself!
Consider also that in WWII pilots were sent into combat with only a couple of dozen hours stick time, not hundreds. Some of them became aces and lived to tell about it. How many of us are able to complete mission after mission in Il-2 without being shot down when we have far more virtual flying hours under our belt?
I'll not get into the unrealistic behavior of AI in most flight sims here--how they'll disregard their own safety in an attempt to shoot you down when you're not a threat to them or their objectives but still get fixated on you and fight to the death all the time. But that also makes things harder than real life.
I simply look for ways to even out the imbalance. I mean, if I NEVER got shot down in Il-2 and careened around the sky with 5 AA kills and several AG kills every mission, I would agree it was too easy. However...
The Jedi Master
Sure thing! Anyone who flies or has flown, even in a simulator, will tell you exactly the same thing - flying on a PC is MUCH MUCH harder work. Restriction of view, and sensation being two physical world elements that provide cues to the senses that simply can't be re-created very well on a PC set-up. 
It is not the technique that wins a fight, but the more furious mind - Kodiak WOF
You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question! - Gen Honore, New Orleans Sep 05
You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question! - Gen Honore, New Orleans Sep 05
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PanzerMeyer
- Posts: 4675
- Joined: 10 Feb 2004, 08:54
- Location: Miami, Florida
That's not to say, we don't appreciate you opening a discussion on the matter to consider everyone's wants and needs mate.Ok, so it's pretty much the consensus then for me to leave the realism options the way they are for now! That's fine with me!
It is not the technique that wins a fight, but the more furious mind - Kodiak WOF
You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question! - Gen Honore, New Orleans Sep 05
You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question! - Gen Honore, New Orleans Sep 05