Issues and recommendations for the casual player ? (Career w/o squad management)

[GregD]

Apologies to the dedicated purists... just trying to maximize my limited fun time with "Korea."   

I love realistic flight models and truly enjoy flying these underpowered jets so far, but I just do not have a ton of time between work/ being kid's uber to dedicate to learning "squadron management"... I spent all my available time re-mapping a million keys and figuring out I actually need JATO bottles on my F80 to help take off 😉 I was trying to do a career mode like I've done for years in great battles: hop in, fly a few missions, hopefully survive, go make dinner! 

 This model does not seem to work here:  I am a squad leader in career mode apparently! I "autoselect" everything, get to fly one or 2 missions, then after the next autoselect the guys apparently go fly w/o me ! No choice on the menu to *participate*, it's just "send the squadron and fast forward"... Am I missing something ? 

After a few of these where I do not get to take part, I may get to participate again, but then any subsequent mission I autoselect tells me the squad does not have enough fuel to even try the new missions. So I guess I totally failed in my duties as leader to order fuel and replacement planes and pilots for my squadron. Fair ! This is a very cool management feature, but in my time frame I don't give a toss, I'd like go fly a series of random missions and not be in charge of all that stuff... Is there a mode where I can do that ? (a series of career-like missions with the same pilot, no squad management, not instant fight ?)
 
Similarly, with my time constraints, the time skip seems super random... Sometimes I'll get it offered to me right after everyone took off (yes, thanks!), sometimes I need to fly for 5 minutes before it offers it (sigh!), sometimes it never does (there goes dinner!)...Is there a way to make the game offer time skip "now" or am I doing something preventing it from being on offer ? (autolevel, time compression, everyone is off the ground) .. Oh and "time scale" does not always work to speed up time, like in great battles. You lose sound but everything is still normal speed (sometimes).

So far so good otherwise,  really enjoying flying these hard to fly planes, shot down a few bombers, ground targets, nailed some nice landings, and even bagged a sabre when trying the mig (not so much the other way around, I can never catch a Mig it's like my sabre has the E-brake on). Thanks for any suggestions ! 

Edited August 6 by GregD

[AndreiTomescu]

Hello from a "purist" but also colleague with you in many terms, including job, kids uber guy, shopper, dinner maker!

I'll try to summarise.

1. Once you choose a mission, you click on the "assign group" and choose who flyes it. If you include the first 4 pilots, the red squad, that includes YOU, and that means you will lead the flight. 12 guys is the max you can select. You can select anybody , even individual pilots, as long as they are not on airfield scramble duty (rectangled by blue dotted)

2. If you EXCLUDE yourself from the flight group, you will make dinner and they will fly by themselves, with the leader od the first patrol selected as the hole squad leader.

3. If you don't wanna manage the group's logistics, you always have an "auto manage" button down, low. But you'll be missing half of the fun. And for the time being no, you can't be just a regular pilot. But! YOU choose if you fly a specific mission or not. It's not random.

4. Time compression: 8x is max, but really works only if you have enough CPU juice to spare. Just like in GB.

Time skip: you are given, after 1-2 min after take-off, 3 options: skip to next way point, skip 20 km to targets, of fly all the way. Same for the return path.

If there is trouble in the bubble, like enemy fighters sniffing, or damage to your plane, or you don't have enough fuel, or simply the software can't calculate the hole skip process (warp speed, Mr Data! 🙂 ) it will fail and resume normal flying (time compression still available)

I am very happy the Korea brought sooo many new people around here. You are welcome to ask whatever you want, and if the answer it's not explicit, fell free to ask again!

[Jegirs]

I'd also like to add something regarding time acceleration. In missions where the target is too close (I don't know the exact distance, but for example, flying from Seoul to the area between Kwe-dong and Kaesong counts as such), time acceleration is disabled.

[Jegirs]

Take some time to look through the profiles of all your pilots. Each pilot has three attributes, and each of those attributes can provide a bonus to the rest of the group if that pilot is the group leader. The bonus is indicated by the purple arrow and the number next to it, shown to the right of the corresponding attribute.

The group leader is always the leftmost pilot. Wingmen and elements are also assigned specifically, meaning that your wingman (the pilot to your right) cannot provide bonuses to the other pilots under any circumstances (except during night interception missions, where there is only a single pilot and you can choose anyone).

So, try to assign pilots with two or more boosters as leaders of flights and elements. Personally, I have every pilot with two or more boosters assigned as either a flight leader or an element leader.

[AndreiTomescu]

25 minutes ago, Jegirs said:

In missions where the target is too close (I don't know the exact distance, but for example, flying from Seoul to the area between Kwe-dong and Kaesong counts as such), time acceleration is disabled.

Uh, not quite. When the distance to mission area is quite short, the SKIP TIME function is disabled. Not the time acceleration.

[AndreiTomescu]

1 hour ago, Jegirs said:

, try to assign pilots with two or more boosters as leaders of flights and elements

Didn't noticed/knew that. It's a suuuper good and useful observation. Thank you, @Jegirs!

@GregD if you want to continue career, but be super duper quick about it, you can do like this:

- choose mission and assign squad manually (it takes 30 secs, including choosing the best suited weapon type)

- start mission, switch auto pilot (left Alt-A), time COMPRESSION 8x

- after auto take off of all planes, reduce time compression to 1x fly as ordered and wait 1-2 min tops for the TIME SKIP option to appear

- choose skip time till 20 km to targets

- once there , do your job and: if "mission completed" you can end mission, or if not, get away at least 10 km from target/enemy assets, and once the skip time option is prompted again, choose "skip time till 20 km from airfield", and land.

But doing so you will miss alot, alot, alot of the fun, scenery, the chance to strife some enemy assets encountered on the way, and such.

[GregD]

Thanks you guys, much appreciated... I enjoy the sim a lot! The time skip does not always appear (odd) or takes forever to do so at times, I was hoping there was a key or something but it's fine...  And the Mustang doesn't flat spin anymore, yippee... There is a lot of depth in this one - just the weapons menu could keep me busy for a long time... I figured out the fuel requests now - the pilot selection was not working for me but it's probably me...   It's gonna be a while before I explore all the options here but it's pretty fun so far. Except I can never catch a Mig 😉 

[AndreiTomescu]

9 minutes ago, GregD said:

can never catch a Mig 😉 

Well, don't get your hopes too low. I did, with a poor Mustang. A bit of luck, some Mig N Korean AI , and the guy turned in my face, 6x .50 cal mg just there for him.....bang! lucky shot? I would give myself some big decoration! 

I would try @Jaegermeister 's scripted campaign, called Home before Christmas. he's really a wizard with the editor. I'm on vacation now, but i can't wait to do that.

[AndreiTomescu]

On 8/6/2026 at 9:57 PM, GregD said:

the pilot selection was not working for me but it's probably me

You have a limited number of planes, pilots that can be "stored" in your group. If, for ex, you have 2 planes damaged, those planes still keep the spaces occupied as they are being repaired, and you can't order replacements, even if you have "request points". Same goes for pilots, but for those i guess there are plenty of bunks, since the pilots can exceed by far the number of planes.

Please check the other posts about how to assign planes to pilots and stuff. The management process is simple to do, but not very intuitive. So far @Jegirs has studied the hole squadron management very through, from all those that wrote about it, i think he is the most knowledgeable.

Overall, this game-in-game stuff is excellent. Good job, actually superb job, @Snipermanx!

P.S. I think i am entitled to like and appreciate and upvote this game despite not being fully optimised, completed and all features functional. But I won't say that on the respective thread, not to stir up endless discussions.

[GregD]

Thanks guys.. I am *really* enjoying this game now.. There is always a steep learning curve with IL2( I remember the same with Great battles). 
Mostly I figured out the bare minimum to be acting as squadron leader (click requests, auto complete them each time) 
and how to participate each mission (assign yourself and exclude another pilot, I was trying it in the wrong place, has to be done in that specific mission clicking on the assigned planes, not 100% obvious).

 I even allowed myself one cheat for aiming, as I really do not have time to #$#$ with the gunsight right now...

It's very very good and fun... Even bagged 2 migs !  Only negative for me: The time skip is not happening... almost ever... With the sabre anyway.. Seen it with the F80 and P51 but no matter what I do, even full autopilot take off, waiting for everyone, I do not get the "skip" offer... I really wish that could be triggered with a key ! Is that also a function of my PC speed, like time x8 not really working ?  Thanks again ! 

[Jaegermeister]

5 minutes ago, GregD said:

 

It's very very good and fun... Even bagged 2 migs !  Only negative for me: The time skip is not happening... almost ever... With the sabre anyway.. Seen it with the F80 and P51 but no matter what I do, even full autopilot take off, waiting for everyone, I do not get the "skip" offer... I really wish that could be triggered with a key ! Is that also a function of my PC speed, like time x8 not really working ?  Thanks again ! 

The time skip feature is built in to a mission. The way it is implemented, it would not be possible to activate it with a key command. The trigger for the interface is usually a “further” check zone from home base at 16 to 20 km range in the career missions, but those are constantly updated so the parameters may have been changed since full release of the career mode. I have not looked that closely at career mission structure in the last few weeks.

Time skip does not activate if you are closer than 50 km to your target area. If the options menu does not pop up, it means the option was not put in the mission template. If you are close to the active map area, you will frequently see a message saying fast travel is disabled because you are too close to the target at the start of the mission.