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Author Topic: How Do You Play Il2?  (Read 5734 times)

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SAS~Monty27

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How Do You Play Il2?
« on: August 10, 2016, 11:29:40 PM »

How Do You Play Il2?

In today's 'Attention Deficit' world Flight Simulators, once the most popular form of computer based entertainment, have become a much rarer commodity.  I have always enjoyed my various flightsims as resources with which to explore aspects of flight and its history.

I enjoy campaigns in Il2 and like to follow a story and complete a set of missions.  There is still nothing to compare with Il2 in this regard.  There is nothing with the variety and flexibility that allows such a breadth of content with such a user friendly tool as FMB.

Currently I have a massive collection of Il2 WWII campaigns, and a growing set of WWI and SCW missions as well.  I create and also collect these mission sets alongside the aircraft, objects and skins that make Il2 such a vastly interesting hobby.

I enjoy diving into a campaign and reliving the scenarios depicted.  For me, FMB is the whole reason for Il2 and the best thing about it.

A typical flight session will take several hours for an evening, even better when I can get a whole day free at the weekend.  There is still plenty of time for everything else in life but I do like to get away and spend time with the sim.  I can usually get 2 to 3 hours on any evening I chose and most weekends. 

Of course we all have families and responsibilities too.  When they take precedance then there is no free time for Il2.  But I have always argued the point, even though many family and friends disagree, that 'down time' and 'personal time' are crucially important to any complete life. 

Fortunately my wife, the only person I really love, trust and respect unconditionally, agrees with me.  We love our time together and we also value the freedom to be ourselves.  Most of our free time is spent together sharing it on things we both enjoy.  But some of that of time is also allocated for our own individual pursuits, doing whatever we want.

But how 'normal' is this?  How representative is it?  How much time do you spend with Il2 and what do you do with it?

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gyronaute

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Re: How Do You Play Il2?
« Reply #1 on: August 11, 2016, 01:24:11 AM »

Hello Monty,
Like you , the same way I appreciate IL2 ,and utmost  FMB , the top of the game . Hoping  for you a lot of
pleasure with it and a long life for SAS.
                                                             Friendly your
                                                                                      The Gyronaute
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The_Alaska_Man

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Re: How Do You Play Il2?
« Reply #2 on: August 11, 2016, 02:49:55 AM »

I use il2 mainly to make my jetwar map versions. I have installed most of the jetwar jets to mostly test out the airfields and make sure that they can land and take off, and to also just kind of mess around with em, although I really should get back into campaigns seeing as I have a brand new GTX 970  :P
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BlackAce7727

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Re: How Do You Play Il2?
« Reply #3 on: August 11, 2016, 03:34:24 AM »

I personally utilise the FMB these days in order to use to the full, the formations you can create. And also the immense detail in the missions that you can create. If you want to have genuine fun in the sim or just prat around, just use QMB. I do a lot for either just wanting instant action or just fly around and do an air display like they do at Duxford.



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Ivan-le-Rouge

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Re: How Do You Play Il2?
« Reply #4 on: August 11, 2016, 03:37:05 AM »

When I was single and before I have a job : mainly campaigns (stock or downloaded).
After obtaining a job and living with my wife : mainly QMB, no more time for long flight. My lovely wife wish we share moments together but also we have time for our personnal hobbies, so she let me play quite often and sometime try to pilot (with various succes). But when I am alone at home I fully enjoy a 3 hours play session!
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Zoran395

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Re: How Do You Play Il2?
« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2016, 04:27:07 AM »

I play a little and map a lot.
Having an air force past, an engineering degree and career, IT experience, a liking for Linux freedom, lots of plastic modelling under my belt, map making is a wonderful activity:
I get to detail as much as I want, can delve into people's stories by researching about a particular village or action by a unit. Then when the airfield is ready, I get to take off, fly above the nearby village I just created, it's an amazing feeling.
Like plastic modelling, I do not really care if it gets finished or not and if finished, I move on to something else, in the case of a map to a new area, a new airfield to create.
On the time spent, this is my only hobby but it has many aspects, including doing research on my laptop, sitting next to my wife (while she knits and watches TV...)
I live in a weird virtual world, only soviet planes, only 1941-42, only Leningrad Oblast, using my own map:
I recently got distracted by Asura's DGEN pack, perfect environment for me, and his campaign generator is absolutely unreal.
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Moezilla

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Re: How Do You Play Il2?
« Reply #6 on: August 11, 2016, 05:31:56 AM »

Once upon a time I hosted IL2 LAN parties with 6-8 pilots and we would fly DCG coop campaigns for hours and sometimes whole weekends. Then I joined an online squad and did that for a couple of years and then I decided to have kids.

These days, I don't "fly" anymore but I'm usually to be found tinkering with the old girl in one way or another. Going to update a couple of old DCG campaigns to current WAW standard once the Autumn hits.

My wife and I have a similar relationship to Monty and his wife. We do some stuff together and also some stuff apart and we're both happier for it.
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Vortex

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Re: How Do You Play Il2?
« Reply #7 on: August 11, 2016, 07:22:44 AM »

I made me a campaign in excel where i have different fictitious countries and every country produces its planes. Its a bit like the old battle of britain but more complex. Maybe this sounds a bit crazy but i always liked to design games.
I play this all together with DCG from Paul Lowengrin. I do this since 2005 :-P

And at the moment i just do some sort of "competition". I use the QMB to let the Fighters fight against each other and just watch it and write down the winner so some day i have the fighter of the fighters lol. 

IL2 is my favorite sim since it came out, nothing beats it and its nealry miraculous community and modders.
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Airbourne

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Re: How Do You Play Il2?
« Reply #8 on: August 12, 2016, 03:50:58 AM »

I spend some time with Il2 almost every day. I fly and I tinker with the game and I check out websites like this one. Like Monty I am a big fan of the FMB. I have been a big fan of flight sims since the days of SWOTL in the early '90s. I particularly like the breadth of the game and for me CUP raises the entertainment to a new level. You have the whole history of military flight at your fingertips.

I am retired so I could play Il2 nearly all the time if I really wanted to, but it doesn't work out that way. I seem to be very busy with one thing and another. ( I spent several years writing a book called The Second World War in the Air. It's on Amazon. Feel free to order your copy!) In practice I play in the evening and at weekends, like most other people, I suspect. I do however, have the luxury of spending a morning with it if I want to, if something really exciting has happened like a new plane I fancy being posted for download.

My children are all grown up and long gone. The only person affected by my playing Il2 is my wife of 42 years who is very patient. I think it helps that her father was a man who retired to his study for long periods (to write sermons mainly). When her mother once complained about this, a friend said: 'Let him be. At least when he's in his study he's not chasing other women.'
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Dimlee

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Re: How Do You Play Il2?
« Reply #9 on: August 18, 2016, 04:24:31 PM »

My love affair with IL2 was the most intense in early years, until 2003-2004. I was real addict. There were periods when I began my online sessions immediately after coming home from the office and completing them at 6 a.m. or even later. Large cup of coffee, shower, back to the office... I had to fight the addiction as it started to impact both personal and professional life. Continued to play in more reasonable style (that means no online in the night) few years more. Stopped when mods just began to grow. Came back recently after trying Gaijin (failed) experiments on PS3 and later on Warthunder - which I found somewhat boring despite all bells and whistles.

Today it's mostly offline with self made missions. Sometimes QMB when I want to refresh my fighter skills before to jump into online again - no, not until the morning.  ;)
Online - stock game. Offline - CUP which is unfathomable. Hope to find time for VP modpack.
4-5 hours a week is my limit. Otherwise I get addicted again!

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EHood

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Re: How Do You Play Il2?
« Reply #10 on: August 19, 2016, 10:41:02 AM »

       I discovered Il-2 in 2005, shortly after recovering from heart surgery. The first version I had came with separate discs for FB and PF (two discs for the latter), and a copy of Lock-On. At about the time I'd exhausted that first version of Il-2 (there were a TOTAL of 90 career missions for a German fighter pilot, 45 for a Russian fighter pilot, and 45 for an Il-2 pilot), the FB/AEP/PF combination appeared. I never did use that old, two-disc version of PF, and after fooling around with Lock-On for a while, I decided that, although the graphics were first-rate, there just weren't enough hours in a day. By that time I was facing a publisher's deadline, so I had to set some serious priorities. Then as now, I only fly late at night, at the end of what passes for my working day. I now have two versions of Il-2 on my hard drive, a stock, 4.13.2 installation, and a CUP installation with all four period modules.
       I only fly offline, and although I have produced and posted a few single-mission sets (at sister station M4T), as a rule I'll fly either stock or third-party careers, at the rate of two or, at most, three missions per session. The number of missions per session depends upon the time required. For instance, I can recall a series of stock Romanian missions, in IAR 80s or 81s, each of which lasted more than an hour: about a half-hour across the entire width of the Crimean Peninsula, ten or fifteen minutes of combat in the Kerch area, then another half-hour for the flight home. As far as I'm concerned, no mission is truly complete until I've either had to bail out, until I've had to make an emergency landing somewhere along the return leg, or until I've returned to the home field, landed, parked in a likely spot, and switched off the engine.
        After 11 years in Il-2, I'm still working my way through some of the long, stock careers. At the moment, however, I'm flying the Belchite SCW campaign in CUP/TGA.  ;D ;D ;D ;D 
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cmnderbob

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Re: How Do You Play Il2?
« Reply #11 on: August 19, 2016, 02:05:40 PM »

I play off-line campaigns. I love scripted campaign that tell a story and I am not bothered by long briefing that set-up the missions. One campaign from years ago that was particularly good was Dubbos "Castaways" It was unique, and told a wonderful story and a actually felt sad when I completed it. Il2 is my down time in the evening and I have never tired flying it. Thanks for all you have done to keep it alive and to this great community of airmen.
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