I would like to address a issue I have with IL-2, which is carried over into all of the modpacks:
Over-realism. "How can something be more real than it is in real life" you ask? It can't. But overly difficult flight characteristics not found in real life is over-realism in my opinion.
You might want to get comfortable because this is long.
I would go so far as to say that if the flight models and AI of the aircraft in IL-2 were accurate with all realism settings on, the Allies could not have won with air power. WWII would have only resulted in a ridiculously higher number of pilot deaths than in real life.
I routinely witness ROOKIE AI defeating ACE AI if the ace happens to be in an American plane. It is well documented that the P-51 was more maneuverable than frontline Axis fighters such as the Bf-109 and Fw-190. I is well documented that the P-51 was FASTER in level flight than all German fighters until planes such as the Fw-190D and Me-262. Yet you rarely see these advantages play out in IL-2. If you try to turn harder than a Bf-109, the P-51 starts dropping a wing off to the side and spins out of control if you continue pulling back, while the Bf-109 easily follows. Only by flying perfectly level for a length of time can you even begin to gain speed on a Fw-190. If the enemy Fw does
anything to avoid the attack, you are nearly helpless to follow their death-defying bone-crushing maneuvers.
The BEST Allied planes snap roll uncontrollably at the slightest turn pulling with stalls and spins on. Any real life pilot could tell you planes don't wobble around and stall like the P-51 in IL-2! A real WWII P-51 pilot once said that the stall characteristics of the P-51 in Jane's WWII Fighters was not correct. IL-2 is MUCH more difficult than WWII Fighters let me tell you. American fighters EVEN ACES wobble around firing randomly, only making occasional hits, which do practically no damage. Look at the AI planes in your missions and see. German and Russian planes ONE SHOT me in 90 degree deflection shots, even when I have a far superior plane. I even see German or Russian AI planes fire 1 second deflection shots while I am constantly jinking BEYOND THEIR FIELD OF VIEW and score direct hits! Realism settings do not affect the AI, but without them, the sim seems to easy! May I remind us that in
real life latewar American fighters literally wiped out IJN and Luftwaffe aircraft with comparatively small losses? Any attempt at replicating this in IL-2 only leads to the opposite!
In traditional missions in IL-2 of P-51s as bomber escorts over Europe, P-51s immediately abandon the bombers at the first enemy attack, waste all their altitude and advantages, and easily get shot down. This really defeats the purpose of the P-51 as a bomber escort. American planes also often had incendiary bullets which should cause more damage than depicted in IL-2. The advantages the US fighters have in IL-2 are wasted by the fact the AI does not accurately allow the plane to use its advantages. For example: An AI P-51 is attacked by a Fw from below. P-51 has the advantage of speed, since the Fw is climbing and the P-51 should be faster in level flight. But no, the AI makes flies the P-51 in lame attempts at jinking, in which the Fw excels, thereby wasting the P-51's speed, which P-51 could have used to simply fly away, climb, or dive. The AI makes the P-51 turn, but rather than continue his turn, the AI is spooked by fire and jinks more, wasting all the speed advantage due to the flight model's unrealistic representation of speed loss from maneuvering. Now reverse the scenario: The P-51 attacks the Fw. P-51 holds down the trigger for 10 seconds wasting his ammo as he sweeps his gunsight from side to side rolling his wings back and forth, rarely hitting the Fw. The Fw, even set to average, jinks so madly and quickly that a human pilot can hardly keep him in the gunsight! When AI P-51 attempts this same jinking, you see him drifting to the side, wasting speed, and very slowly recovering from any maneuver.
This sim would have me believe great world-changing planes like the P-51 were helpless flops in combat! And I only use the P-51 as an example. Many of the planes in IL-2 1946 have flight characteristics that are over-realistic. I'm not just whining, this is a real issue!
Anyone here on SAS will tell you that planes like the P-51, P-38, Hellcat, and Corsair are just plain lousy in dogfights against their contemporary Bf-109/Fw-190s, midwar Yak/Las, and A6M/etc fighters in IL-2, though in real life the more advanced late-war American fighters would have an advantage over these enemies all other factors evened, as history tells us.
Yes, German aces had higher kill rates. They also often had more missions per pilot, better planes early in the war, less skilled Russian adversaries, a motive of rewards fueled by killing planes, not winning the war, far more bomber targets, and sometimes more training. I'm not saying they didn't have great accomplishments. They did. But their accomplishments, as well as all WWII pilots' sacrifices, are not given as much value in IL-2! Still don't believe my tirade?
Lets put it this way: How many people use those American planes above in multiplayer when they can have their choice of plane?
Not many. When I look on Hyperlobby in a free-selection server, 90% of the time I see only these:
Ki-84c (ridiculously OP guns and, though real, in reality VERY few were used by comparison to other Japanese types)
A6M (dives and turns at unrealistically high speed like a P-51, without breaking the wing off [which would happen to A6M in real life] and watch real life videos of it obliterating at the slightest provocation by 50 cals.)
Bf-109 (latest model allowed by the server, with extra cannons which would weight it down in combat in real life)
Fw-190 (don't even bother fighting, they just dive from 10,000 feet and slam you, you can't shoot back because you're practically stalling just trying to avoid his fire and Fw is going so fast he would black out pulling out of it in real life)
La-5/7 (no, just because it's a Russian game doesn't mean that Russian plane should not stall at all in high G turns when the more advanced P-51 is snap rolling WITH FLAPS in the same turn.)
And finally, the inevitable:
I-185 (Insanely OP for its time "1942" PROTOTYPE never used in combat due to the Russians APPARENTLY NOT LIKING IT since it was not put into production
)
This is proof enough in my mind that there is something wrong with the Allied, and specifically the American planes. Yes, different planes have different advantages, but the US fighter aircraft in IL-2 are hardly on par with the same planes they dominated in real life.
Obviously, this takes all the fun out of free-flying servers unless you are one of those planes, or have way to much time on your hands to become an expert at a different biased-against plane. I usually solve this problem quite easily by not playing online at all. In offline gameplay, I attempt to deal with over-realism by disabling overreacted effects like "Stalls and Spins", "Engine Overheat" and "Wind Turbulence". "These are real effects in real life" you might say, but I have flown in enough real life planes to know that these effects and many others in IL-2 are
heavily overreacted. I also find myself avoiding the P-51 as many other users likely do. Go figure. It's things like this that keep new players from joining our community of IL-2 users. A few of my friends have tried IL-2 and loved it, but soon gave up because it was "too hard". Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL for realism. I'm that one person that gets pangs of cheaters remorse if I turn off even one of the realism settings. Realism is why I don't play any video games on Xbox, PS3, Wii, or anything else. I mostly play IL-2, because it is the best and most complete depiction of combat flight, and that's what I'm interested in. But when the matter of "too hard" is because of over-realism and what seems to be bias, the playability and "cool" factor of playing the game is greatly reduced along with the realism. This is a big reason why I think more people aren't attracted to IL-2 and the SAS website. I don't see myself ever leaving Il-2, but I don't see a lot of people coming to it either, and that kind of saddens me because some people have put a lot of work into this sim.
So "turn off Stalls and Spins" you may say. We do. "Turn off wind turbulence and all the other unnecessary stuff." We do. But there is still the issue. Even with nearly all but the essential realism settings off, we must deal with unrealistic flight models and apparent bias against many allied planes and their human players in general!
This is just one of the many issues we must live with. This is not any of the modders' faults as far as I know, this kind of "over-realism" was apparent even in the original stock game, so I'm not blaming anyone here. What do you think? Do you encounter these issues, or is it just me? Can something be done about it?
Tell me in the replies...
-Captain Dawson
Author
Topic: Over-realism. Yes there is such a thing. (Read 15568 times)
