Hey guys!

First of all, my apologies for being AWOL for so many weeks...that stupid thing called “real life” keeps rearing its ugly head. I was home a grand total of 6 days last month, and just got back from Asia a few days ago, AND leave for 3 weeks in France in a few days...jeesh! The good news is that after I return from Normandy, I’ll have about a month off...so plan on putting up with my crappy flying (and idiotic banter on TS) for most of September.

With all that blathering finished, I spent a bit of time in the latest “IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad” build yesterday. While having no where near the complexity (and fidelity) of DCS, it’s nonetheless fun as hell. IIRC, most of us are long time “IL-2 Sturmovik” fans, and I’m hoping that this one (due to release in the Fall of this year) will live up to its amazing lineage.

I was very much looking forward to flying one of the newest builds...the Focke-Wulf FW-190 A3 (btw, I don’t own the Dora, but I’m moving in that direction). I spent some time tussling with some Laggs, and then made a short vid of some train strafing. I LOVE blowing up trains in this sim...they’ve modeling it very nicely. The cars (and engine) will separate, etc... way cool!

Here’s the link (be sure and select an “HD” setting and TURN UP THE SOUND!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_mj35LQ4Ek

Lol....

25% off on Steam today!

Il-2 Battle of Stalingrad on Steam

I'm so on the fence about buying 'another' sim, but I'm tempted...

Ox and myself have some hours in this game. Great improvement on COD

Looks great !! Just_____ have_____ to________resist...........

Hey guys,

Yeah, this one is a bit of a conundrum for me.

I've been flying it since the day they offered it to the "founders" (a fancy word for giving them your hard earned $ to get early access to a beta). It has some AMAZING stuff, but is lacking in other areas (I'll expound below). If you've flown "Rise Of Flight", then you know exactly of what I speak...

In the last few days, I've spent several hours back in the skies over the Eastern Front giving it a shake-out since the latest update. First a few shots...

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Flying for "Uncle Joe" in the namesake of the sim. You start each mission on the runway with the engine running...I would much rather start in the revetment with a dead engine. A DEV just released an 8 mission "mini-campaign" that showcases just what the M.E. can do....it's pretty incredible (yes, you do start in the revetment with a dead engine... )

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Mission was to destroy a train. After about :15, we found the facsist train, and proceeded to blast it! Oh...beware....tree collisions are VERY MUCH modeled in this sim...lol.

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CLEARLY a "swing and a miss" on this bombing pass... The bomb explosions are way cool to watch!

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Evening mission flying the "Gustav" escorting some He-111s. If you don't think this sim is gorgeous, then you need to have yourself checked....it's jaw dropping.

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We get jumped by some Yaks, and I relieve this guy of a few feet of his starboard wing. He decides to hit the silk...

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On final back at Home Plate. The attention to detail is unbelievable...the searchlights, the runway fires, the field shooting a green flare as you approach to signal it's safe to land...TONS of little details that will rock you.

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On an "airfield attack" evening mission. We blunder into a nest of searchlights and maneuver pretty violently to stay out of the lights. They WILL latch on to you and I would swear that the flak/AAA will target you more after that...

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Beautiful cockpits. NOT "mouse clickable" like DCS, but they are nice to look at nonetheless!

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Apparently no one told this dude that the big-assed searchlight thing used to light the runway will RUIN one's night vision....douche bag.

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Nice moon...eh?

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Again, LOTS and LOTS of amazing detail and eye candy. IMHO, it's an incredible SINGLE PLAYER flight simulation at this point in time. They keep the updates coming, and all of them seem to bring something good... for instance, they're working on a (non-flyable) Ju-52. Also, I've heard rumblings of making some flyable "Lend Lease" stuff like the P-40 and P-39... The missions in the "stock" Stalingrad campaign are very good (not great in that they can be a bit repetitive), and there is a rather robust ground and air war going on around you (that you can participate in or not).

I'm guilty of NOT checking out the MP world in this one in quite a while (a couple of months at least). Last time I checked, it was a "DOGFIGHT" server world only...no "Coop" stuff at all. I do know they just upped the max in a server from 32 to 48, so that would be cool. Also, no way to set up a "personal" server...just use what's available. I will say that each time I've been in a server, it was fluid and I had tons of fun. I'm guessing that SIX and Ox will have more info on that.

So right now my biggest gripes are:
- No coop in the MP world
- No way to have our own server
- No Mission Editor ...yet...(they're saying it will be released after the first of the year)
- some "niggling" things (for instance, you can set up things like Padlock in the Settings menu,and it works great in the Single Missions, but doesn't work in the Campaign).

So, in conclusion....I LOVE the Single Player part of this, just don't know if it's "ready for prime time" in the MP world yet...at least until they get some Coop stuff going.

Hope this helps.

BB

Thanks BBall, great SITREP. I think maybe.....

Thanks for that BBall, great to hear your views.... If only we had MP Co-op...

Agreed on the Co-op.

After logging a zillion hours in the legacy "IL-2", and having won the First World War from the cockpit (and observer's) seat in "Rise Of Flight", I can see that the marriage of these two VERY talented teams has the potential to make an epic WWII sim.

But (and it's a biiiiiig but)...

Without a Co-op world, I'm just NOT going to be interested in spending hours creating a "living airfield" like I did back in the legacy days. (here are a few shots from the airfield I made for my video tribute to the 365th FG "Hell Hawks"...this is a link to the "teaser video"....you only see about 1/2 of the airfield.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmxCUCjhRbo )

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I absolutely HATE an airfield that isn't "alive"!

My LAN mates give me mountains of chin music about the fact that when you start in many of my old IL-2 missions (yep...dead engine, revetment thing again...are we seeing a pattern?), you have to dodge the "killer Jeeps" on the way to the runway! Just like in real life...

Why bother if you're going to have random strangers (with names like "Buttered Buns"....yes, an actual name in one of the DF servers I flew in BOS), doing the "yank and bank"/die/respawn/rinse and repeat thing ad nauseum...

Just my .02....

   

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