Engine timers

[Stelcio]

Back to the title after a while.

Were there any significant changes to the engine timer mechanic? Some people suggested either making it optional (it's already possible to disable the timer with "Unbreakable" option, but with much more stuff disabled alongside) or reducing the consequences so the engine doesn't just die after few minutes of using its available combat power.

I don't think we even have a way to see if the end of the timer is reached, am I correct? Or maybe there are some third party tools that ease managing that aspect of game that I don't know of.

It's just unnecessarily frustrating to manage such a fragile and overly punishing mechanic during hectic dogfights, to be honest, which is why I'm inquiring about how that aspect has been managed since I last interacted with the title a few years ago.

[Gutholz]

Do you use cockpit notes?

https://forum.il2-series.com/forum/34-mods-and-3rd-party-apps/

They give you an idea how long you can fly with which engine rpm / ata. What limits the time depends on the plane I guess, for some it might be thermal (look at the temperature gauges) or it might be running out of MW50 etc. If oil starts to leak onto the windscreen or the rpm begins to wobble then those are also signs that end of engine life is near. But I found if I throttle down early enough then I can safely return to base even with a damaged engine.

[Stelcio]

I fly P-47 and the timers are pretty simple to remember: 15 minutes on full power or 5 minutes full power + water injection. That's not the issue.

The issue is that once you're in a furball, it's hard to keep track of time. The temperature gauges don't really help because the timers are independent of temperatures and even if the engine doesn't overheat, it can still fail simply because you exceeded the hidden timer.

[Kubert]

I never checking time...but, I also don't remember dogfight 15 minutes long. Until that time I either run out of targets, ammunition or I am damaged and must RTB. Or there is few minutes window when I can get out of combat power to reset a timer. Shorter timers, like 1, 3 or 5 minutes long are only for acceleration for me.

Edited August 28 by Kubert

[MaxPower]

If you climb and fight at combat power for aircraft without mw50, and only use emergency power sparingly, you should be doing alright without much time awareness.  For aircraft with mw50, you can activate the system when you see enemy aircraft and deactivate it when the fighting is over, and your combat timer will likely be reset.  If you do this and cruise on max continuous or below, it should be that you have very few problems with timers.  Some timers are only one minute tho and those will always be a pain in the butt.

[R33GZ]

On 8/28/2026 at 9:31 PM, Stelcio said:

Back to the title after a while.

Were there any significant changes to the engine timer mechanic? Some people suggested either making it optional (it's already possible to disable the timer with "Unbreakable" option, but with much more stuff disabled alongside) or reducing the consequences so the engine doesn't just die after few minutes of using its available combat power.

I don't think we even have a way to see if the end of the timer is reached, am I correct? Or maybe there are some third party tools that ease managing that aspect of game that I don't know of.

It's just unnecessarily frustrating to manage such a fragile and overly punishing mechanic during hectic dogfights, to be honest, which is why I'm inquiring about how that aspect has been managed since I last interacted with the title a few years ago.

Its remaines the same, however, some aircraft such as the P40 and several 109 variants have had engine modifications added that have extended the time limit. I dont use it, but if you have techno chat enabled, I believe that gives you notification on engine wear?

[LukeFF]

On 9/8/2026 at 4:02 PM, R33GZ said:

if you have techno chat enabled, I believe that gives you notification on engine wear?

Yes, it does. 🙂 

[Bert_Foster]

Do Engine "Timers" exist in Korea ??

[Avimimus]

11 hours ago, Bert_Foster said:

Do Engine "Timers" exist in Korea ??

Based on what was covered in the Briefing Room videos. Korea uses a system that was much more difficult to develop: Great Battles was mainly developed using historical guidelines (e.g. manuals). For Korea, the developers did extensive research into the history of the engine development to identify which parts of the engines were the likely sources of failure and under what conditions. So, it is essentially a more complex and engine specific simulation. If you run your engine outside of its design parameters for too long - it can fail though.

[Rei-sen]

11 hours ago, Avimimus said:

So, it is essentially a more complex and engine specific simulation.

In practice, it's the same old timers as before. As an example, P-51 engine fails at the exact same time after you "exceed the limits". They provided a setting to turn this questionable mechanic off, but it's currently not working although the bug was created since the 0.00x version.