A new Dev Blog #86 is here!

[kev2go]

Aside from going back in time again and entertaining a PTO race against  the upcoming Combat Pilot perhaps il2 devs could entertain pushing forward in time past Korea towards the  Vietnam war. Another cornerstone conflict in the evolution of air warfare. Its not like  DCS will have a vietnam map anytime soon or even a coherent amount of aircraft assets for that theatre ever.

Edited September 5 by kev2go

[Mainstay]

Kinda worries me that this Korea era already is drying up for red content plane wise……

[FuriousMeow]

2 hours ago, MiGCap said:

Has anyone noticed beside me that instead discussing DevBlog #86 of IL-2:Korea we talk - over pages now! - a dozen possibilities/wishes/hopes of a game a few (or more) years in the future from now? 😄

Always has to be "what's next" after "what's next" and I think the course after Korea is pretty clear but I'm very much looking forward to carrier ops - at least there's, mostly, no hopium with that. I could spend hours just taking off, landing, doing touch and gos in various weather. Really hope task editor will be able to adjust sea states or have weather sets so we can go from calm to "this is definitely a bad idea" just to goof around with. 

I also don't think I've ever "flown" a Sea Fury in a sim before, it was listed as a potential in the earliest MMP Sim I played but that never happened. Looking forward to that too, well honestly looking forward to the whole bundle.

Edited September 5 by FuriousMeow

[AndreiTomescu]

MIGCap has a strong point here.

i really wish to see....home by Christmas : improved AI, particularly for F-80 but not only, more type of missions in career mode, stronger wings on Sabre, full radar working on P-84, more scripted campaigns, less cpu stuttering in heavy missions, better AI, Ai,ai..aiaiai... 🙂 so basically i'd love to see the things said in DevBlog #1-#85 more sorted out. After that i could start looking at the horizon. Like career ops.

[BraveSirRobin]

1 hour ago, Mainstay said:

Kinda worries me that this Korea era already is drying up for red content plane wise……

Blame Stalin for that. He should have sent more cool aircraft for us to shoot down/fly 75 years later.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Only three flyable combat aircraft that the North should probably have beyond the current plane set.

La9

Tu2

Early Mig 15.

You could also add the P0.2 as it's sort of a combat aircraft.

[Captain_Trips]

5 hours ago, kev2go said:

Aside from going back in time again and entertaining a PTO race against  the upcoming Combat Pilot perhaps il2 devs could entertain pushing forward in time past Korea towards the  Vietnam war. Another cornerstone conflict in the evolution of air warfare. Its not like  DCS will have a vietnam map anytime soon or even a coherent amount of aircraft assets for that theatre ever.

My own opinion, is once you get to radars displays and missiles, you lose me.  The dev difficult also goes up exponentially even with Vietnam level radar displays.

I like IL2K because even though it's jets, it has an analog feel.  And gun only kills.

And there is no kill like a gun kill.  Except maybe a knife kill.

FYI, I think I'm sure I saw Luke say there were no Vietnam plans.  Of course, that doesn't mean plans don't change.



 

[FuriousMeow]

No to Vietnam, give PTO a chance man!

[kev2go]

3 hours ago, Captain_Trips said:

My own opinion, is once you get to radars displays and missiles, you lose me.  The dev difficult also goes up exponentially even with Vietnam level radar displays.

I like IL2K because even though it's jets, it has an analog feel.  And gun only kills.

And there is no kill like a gun kill.  Except maybe a knife kill.

FYI, I think I'm sure I saw Luke say there were no Vietnam plans.  Of course, that doesn't mean plans don't change.



 

 

I recall that even the korean war had Night fighter jets with radar systems such as the USN F3D skynight and USAF F94 participating in theatre. I could speculate there may well be a future expansion pack that includes those kinds of fighters depending on the success of korea. The inclusion of a onboard radar doesn't stop them from being analog. Digitization of fighters didn't occur until 4th generation for the most part. With work being done on AI Helicopters for the Deck ops, these sort of machines would play an even bigger role in the Vietnam conflict given that their use expanded beyond Medivac or CSAR roles into large scale air assaults and gunship use.

 

What would makes Vietnam still interesting as a combat flight sim there were multiple generation of fixed wing aircraft that participated in that conflict. You still saw piston planes used for ground attack  ( F8F bearcat for south vietnam, US navy still had A1 skyraider squadrons in theatre until 1968. The  USAF adopted surplus A1's for CAS and CSAR, OV10 bronco), early supersonic dayfighters  such as the F-100 super sabre,  coupled with later century series as well various models of the F4 phantom for both Air force and Navy. Similar story for the other side also employed jets of various generations such as MIg17F, Mig19 ( technically Chinese copy), and various models of Mig21, albiet not as larger selection for that side which is the same case for the Korean theatre.

The early missiles and radars aren't anything to write home about. I know coming from DCS Its almost impossible to get BVR kills with the sparrows  on the F4E except under the most ideal circumstances due to limitations of pulse radar technology (   namely severe ground clutter interference unless flying at higher altitudes) The IR missiles of the time still require positioning directly on the aircrafts 6 which is not easy to do if they are engaging you in a dogfight so there are plenty of opportunities for gun kills in this era as opposed to the very late cold war thru to contemporary period where maturation in missile and radar technology allowed for beyond visual range missile slinging to become dominant way of downing other aircraft. The jets of Vietnam are still  analog with some exception of the tail end of Vietnam war with the likes of A7D/E corsairs for thier respective branches having HUD's with  CCRP aided delivery and advanced moving map navigation systems participated in linebacker 1/2 air campaigns.

Ground attack in Vietnam would also become more challenging, at least when flying deep in the north particularly route pack 5 and 6  designated areas where pilots would face not just intensive flak but a network of SAM's which would spice things up.

 

So perhaps i am an outlier thus some on these forums could dismiss me as a mere franchise "tourist" but i got into IL2K precisely because the creators of the series finally decided to move forward in time beyond ww2. Korea hadn't been done before and basically every combat  flight sim i can think of was set either in ww2 or focused on a contemporary period, with nothing in between these eras.  I don't think there has been a combat flight sim set in Vietnam since Strike fighters 2 which apart from being a very dated game was also more arcadey when compared to other flight sims of the time.

 

Edited September 6 by kev2go

[BlitzPig_EL]

If they go to Vietnam, my cash flow to 1C will stop.  Simple as that..

[MiGCap]

My cash flow to 1C will not stop, regardless of the theatre of operations the developers will choose next. The field of combat flight sims is so small that a company which concentrates on this area has to be supported in any case in my opinion.

For now I am very happy with Korea, it is my favourite era and everyting comes after it will be only second place, may it be PTO (most probably) or Vietnam (which I think is unlikely).

For now, I hope for more Korea content like for example a two-engined bomber pack with an A-26 Invader and a flyable Tu-2.

[Dash,Polder]

You think Korea is lopsided, Vietnam was far worse, the Peoples Air Force packed up it's bags and vanished for four years with not a single fighter air to air engagement from 68 to 72.   The plane imbalance there would be epic compared to Korea.  

If we are ever going modern age with this flight sim the focus can't be balanced through aircraft.  Maybe why the DCS crew ain't that far off the mark in their sandbox aircraft philosophy after all and continue as a commercial survivor pretty decent.  

I like the ground war fidelity this team has built, it's the star of the show and the hidden gem of this series continuous from Oleg's original creation, they will always succeed with me sticking to that lineage as the baseline.  The Air Combat is just gravy and trimmings as part of the bigger show.

 

[BoeingVertol]

No kidding Nam would be amazing.  A good map, a bunch of planes/jets, logic for SAMs, individual aircraft radar guided, radio wave seeking, IR seeking, and later laser guided weapons to name a few is a monumental undertaking.  Then factor in countermeasures as well?   That is going to require lots of development time and capital,we have just dipped our toes into jets.  People can ask for whatever they want, but some thought needs to go into it. Pretty big leap and ask from where we are currently.

Edited September 6 by BoeingVertol

[GiftGruen]

Well. Not for me - not at all.

There are enough space shooters out there already 😉

16 hours ago, BraveSirRobin said:

Blame Stalin for that. He should have sent more cool aircraft for us to shoot down/fly 75 years later.

Well, Stalin learned by victory that a chaotic Wunderwaffen-Approach doesnt succeed 😉

However - the Wunderwaffen-Approach could give as a bunch of interesting Aircrafts in a revival of the 1946 scenario ….

[Kaenzdhi]

PTO=no russian planes=no go for me

[kev2go]

For existing korean theatre I am also awaiting for A/G aspect of aircraft equipped with A1CM sight to be finished. At the moment you can only deliver ordinance via intuition. There ius no true "manual" delivery mode  as you cannot depress the gunsight pipper like you can with K14 for corresponding rocket or bomb delivery tables. There is also supposed to be an "automatic" release mode for bombs with the A1CM.  I am hoping that a patch fleshing out this capability will reach sooner then Deck ops expansion however there was no mention of this in devblog 86. I was also hoping an F-86E would get announced as a collector plane since the first examples started arriving in summer of 1951 but alas its just the upcoming naval  planes via DECK ops for now.

Edited September 6 by kev2go

[FuriousMeow]

Not everything gets a mention in devblogs.

[MiGCap]

To add to the Vietnam debate: I really like Vietnam as theatre of operations.

BUT: I am playing IL-2 Korea, IL-2 GB und FC also for the simplicity of the aircraft of the respective times. If I want complexity, I play DCS.

Vietnam is far more complex in aircraft technology than Korea - Radar / SAMs / RWR, all this stuff. That’s not what I expect from IL-2. In my opinion - and I repeat, it‘s only my five cents, nothing more! - Vietnam doesn‘t fit in the IL-2 portfolio.

That doesn‘t mean that I wouldn‘t buy IL-2:Vietnam on the first day it is announced. 😄 But I do not think it will happen. 

 

Edited September 6 by MiGCap
Typo

[kev2go]

DCS is "complex" mostly due to the fact you have fully clickable cockpits, and are expected to memorize cold start procedures ( but even then you can cheat with hotstart or an autostart procedure)  Also contemporary period systems have greater complexity for learning systems then prior generation of aircraft.  Flaming cliffs demonstrated that you can still have non clickable cockpits but still have on board radar systems without being overwhelmed. Strike Fighters 2 Vietnam expansion i also did not consider overwhelming to fly radar and RWR equipped aircraft, neither in war thunder were such aircraft too much to grasp.   In the Vietnam war the most modern fighter available in theatre at the time was the F4 phantom. The pilot did not touch the radar, that area of responsibility was for the backseater. In the single seat F-105D, the USAF's workhorse strike fighter the Radar set was mostly used for either general terrain mapping as a navigation aid  or in terrain avoidance mode in poor weather conditions which purpose is self explanatory. For the Vietnamese air force the onboard radars on migs are much shorter ranged and generally speaking are left in standby until GCI directed you to a final firing position. But even then its still kinda unnecessary as Mig21's typically only flew with IR seekers at the time so onboard radar tracking wouldn't have been necessary unless you were attempting to intercept a target at night or poor weather conditions.

Edited September 6 by kev2go

[Viking1]

4 hours ago, MiGCap said:

For now I am very happy with Korea, it is my favourite era and everything comes after it will be only second place, may it be PTO (most probably) or Vietnam (which I think is unlikely).

With the DLC its going to be one deep, rich sim. Hopefully the fan base will really grow.. good for everyone!

[Panzerlang]

IL2's lane is MGs, cannons, rockets and bombs, all manual and 100% pilot skill. Vietnam onwards, too much computer-crutch malarkey. Subjective likes and dislikes however but that's where I'm at. The PTO would be absolutely superb with this engine of course.

[Bell]

2 hours ago, Panzerlang said:

IL2's lane is MGs, cannons, rockets and bombs, all manual and 100% pilot skill.

There were already things similar to CCIP(BZA 1) and CCRP(TSA 2D) ancestors during WWII.

[MiGCap]

3 hours ago, Panzerlang said:

IL2's lane is MGs, cannons, rockets and bombs, all manual and 100% pilot skill. Vietnam onwards, too much computer-crutch malarkey. Subjective likes and dislikes however but that's where I'm at. The PTO would be absolutely superb with this engine of course.

And no damn SAMs which always bother me in DCS!! 🙄

[catch]

12 hours ago, Kaenzdhi said:

PTO=no russian planes=no go for me

Yeah, no WW1 crates either. That makes two of us. Your loss, 1C.

[Valis]

8 hours ago, Panzerlang said:

IL2's lane is MGs, cannons, rockets and bombs, all manual and 100% pilot skill. Vietnam onwards, too much computer-crutch malarkey. Subjective likes and dislikes however but that's where I'm at. The PTO would be absolutely superb with this engine of course.

A pox on all guided missiles.