I DO actually have this game, though I feel somewhat ashamed to say that I've never actually played a mission in it, despite having owned it for more than three years now. I briefly played its predecessor, the first IL-2 and was somewhat discouraged by the steep learning curve you referred to. That said, I read about the various IL-2 later versions and its companion games such as Pacific Fighters, and was awed by the thorough nature of the planes it included. Then I found a copy of IL-2 1946 at my work and snatched it up right away. I've had it installed for some time, and have kept it updated, but I haven't found any patches more recent than a 4.09 Beta. Can you post a link to the 4.10.1, or its predecessors if it needs sequential updated? I currently have 4.08 installed.
4.09m Official Release thread4.10 Official Release thread4.10.1 Official Release threadSome very nice camo schemes there, Herra.
I've been playing this series for a few years now, and currently I play using the UltraPack mod, but only offline. I think that I would like to try a multiplayer game at some point but I'm not that savvy about dealing with servers, not to mention that I'm sure I'd be shot down pretty quickly, having only had an offline IL-2 experience so far.
I'll share a piece of advice that I have found useful, although I'm sure the more ardent IL-2 simmers here probably know of it already. During dogfights that involve chasing aircraft that are performing split-S's and making sharp climbs (i.e. fighting in the vertical plane), varying prop pitch (on those aircraft that have a variable-pitch propeller that can be manually controlled) in addition to managing the throttle can provide you with that little bit of extra energy. For example when following a diving, inverted aircraft (a split-S type maneuver), reducing prop pitch to about 80-85% can provide you with extra speed, which can then be useful whilst tailing the aircraft on the up-climb, but you have to remember to increase prop pitch again when climbing. You can also alter the pitch during the cruise to get a little more fuel efficiency. I have two buttons for controlling prop pitch in front of my throttle for ease of use.
There's a few cases where adjusting propeller pitch can be useful:
1. Keeping your engine working at maximum powerband (best climb and fastest cruise speed).
This is useful in airplanes whose engines have a narrow powerband. Some engines have a wide power band, which allows more lax operation without too much performance penalty, but something like an F4U's Pratt&Whitney R2800-8W radials and some others in the plane, you can get quite a bit of performance boost if you manage to keep the engine working at its ideal power band (if I recall right, it's about 2700 RPM for R2800), since it allows the propeller to produce the maximum thrust at any given throttle setting, and also keeps the engine cool.
2. Achieving better
acceleration when starting a steep dive.
Since the engines of WW2 planes did not give them all that high acceleration compared to modern jets, starting a steep dive from relatively slow level flight presents an interesting situation.
Downward forces include thrust and gravity, while upward forces include drag (this is a bit simplified, but works anyway).
Now, the airplane's acceleration downward depends on the sum of these forces. Basically the pilot can not affect the gravitational acceleration of his plane. However, he
can adjust the thrust and drag of his plane.
However, as the airspeed of the airplane starts to increase, the constant-speed propeller operation might not be sufficient to keep the propeller spinning at ideal speed for producing maximum thrust with minimal drag. The engine will start to over-rev at steep dive before the constant speed propeller can catch up and increase the angle of the prop blades. In the nomenclature of IL-2 Sturmovik, this actually means decreasing the prop pitch value, so if you do that you can keep your engine closer to the ideal power band, and thus reduce the drag from windmilling propeller blades.
Another thing you can do during a dive to reduce drag is to retract cowling flaps, which are often kept open to keep the engine cool when operating at high power settings. In reality, cowling flaps (and radiator flaps) needed to be retracted at certain airspeed or their mechanism could be damaged (this functionality is sadly not represented in IL-2, and most of the time people end flying with radiators full open and engine at as high power setting as possible to avoid overheating (in most planes, 105%+WEP, in some planes 95%, in some even less - depends also on airspeed and altitude and ambient temperature, but that's another matter).
Anyway, as you don't want to overheat your engine in a dive, but closing cowling and radiator flaps can reduce drag, you can end up
accelerating faster by reducing throttle and prop pitch, and closing cowling and radiator flaps during the fast steep descent.
When you approach your terminal velocity, setting engine back to maximum power and adjusting prop pitch for appropriate RPM's can give you a little more terminal velocity, but then you need to also open the radiators to avoid overheating.
It's a complex balance of variables.
3. Achieving maximum
efficiency (range or flight time).
This can be useful for preserving a damaged engine, or cruising at maximum efficiency to save fuel, or for trying to stay in the air as long as possible with small amount of fuel onboard.
The idea of maximum efficiency is to optimize the traveled distance with consumed fuel, which is not easy. Setting up for maximum flight time on the other hand simply involves setting the engine at its lowest power setting that can support level flight...
On the topic of engine management there are a couple of other pointers.
Lowering the RPM's can be done with either reducing the throttle, reducing the mixture setting, or reducing propeller RPM's. Also, the most important instrument for measuring engine
power is manifold pressure gauge, which essentially measures the amount of air going into the engine*. Forced induction engines have certain limits of operation, basically too high manifold pressure will make the engine blow a gasket or even disfigure the cylinder head or, in extreme cases, cylinder block itself).
The basic idea is that manifold pressure is the power gauge, and RPM's are used to adjust the engine to produce the maximum thrust. With manually selected supercharger stages you'll need to familiarize yourself to what altitude you need to engage each stage, but a good rule of thumb is that if manifold pressure stabilizes at higher value at high stage than low stage, then the higher stage is the better one.
Like said, though, running at too high manifold pressure can damage the engine, but I have never experienced engine failure due to too high manifold pressure, and you only fly a single airplane once - so fly it like you stole it, in reality your ground chief would be furious at you for ruining the carefully maintained engine, but in this game it really doesn't matter. It
might matter in Cliffs of Dover if the physical weathering system does what I think it does (ie. reduce plane's performance based on how much it has been used).
Then there's also the adjustable mixture settings in some planes, which necessitate you using lower mixture ratio at higher altitudes. The mixture settings can also be used to run the engine at lean mixture at lower altitudes, in order to reduce fuel consumption and improve efficiency, but allegedly running at too low mixture can also damage the engine.
Most of the time it is pertinent to use as high as possible mixture, since that gives the maximum power from the engine at any given altitude, and maximum power translates to maximum thrust, and if you can mange your engine to produce even slightly more thrust than your enemy's plane, you'll end up slowly gaining energy...
Then there are the war emergency power devices, such as the auxiliary fuel booster pumps in Spitfires and other Merlin powered engines, option to increase throttle to 110% in some planes, Take-off/WEP boost in some planes, water-methanole injection, water injection, and nitrous oxide injection systems, which also need to be familiarized with as doing something like engaging or disabling MW50 system at high power setting can lead to serious engine damage due to sharp increase or decrease in manifold pressure.
So yeah, the complex engine management is something you should definitely read about. I make it sound more complex than its operation really is. If you're just beginning and need to first learn how to fly and shoot, you should pick an airplane with highly automatized engine management systems. Good options are:
Bf-109
Spitfire
FW-190
The planes that require the most engine management are the Soviet Yakovlevs and Lavochkins.
Does anyone know if it's possible to have an IL-2 multi game in which you can have players acting as a flight crew, manning separate crew stations in bombers and suchlike? The second B-17 Flying Fortress game that Microprose made (The Mighty 8th) was supposed to have that feature originally but IIRC it was dropped from the final release.
EDIT: Actually I just looked this up and multi-player manned crew positions have been implemented since Forgotten Battles...
Co-op multiplayer missions support this, but personally I have never really been all that interested in that. Sitting in a plane flown by someone else is not exactly what I'm interested in - and I'm not usually fond of flying bomber sorties either.
The problem with bombers is that sometimes gunners are super accurate and sometimes they can't hit an aircraft hangar if the plane was inside it, and they tend to attract noobs who just fly in hosing weapons at you and then usually ram you.
If there was support for really high number of players so that you could set up a large formation of bombers, with each having pilot, bombardier and gunner, attacked by a large formation of Luftwaffe fighters... that could be interesting, but most of the time there are no such high numbers of people around to get something like that done.
What I like is the dogfight maps and how they can be essentially turned into co-op maps if there are people willing to co-operate on your side. Many dogfight maps in Skies of Fire and all in Skies of Valor can be won by achieving certain goals first, such as destroying designated ground targes, instead of just concentrating on aerial combat.
I've been on a few organized bombing raids with escort fighters, and it's really a blast. Similarly, co-operating with wingmen on TeamSpeak makes the game a whole different experience.
*To be exact, manifold pressure measures absolute pressure at induction manifold.
On naturally aspirated engines, the engine is functioning as a vacuum pump, cylinders' movement creating suction of air into the engine. That's why on NA engines, manifold pressure always shows a reading lower than surrounding atmospheric pressure.
On forced induction engines, there's a compressor ahead of the manifold, and when the compressor is engaged, the absolute pressure at the manifold is higher than surrounding atmosphere.
This means that manifold pressure gauges don't work exactly the same with NA and FI engines. On naturally aspirated engine, the manifold pressure doesn't directly correlate with engine power. When flying straight and level, manifold pressure will
decrease when engine power is increased, but it is also decreased when you climb - but engine power drops off at altitude because the atmospheric pressure drops as well. Basically, the pressure differential defines the airflow into the engine.
With forced induction engines, the pressure measured at the manifold gives a much more direct indication of amount of air available for the engine, as it's compressed before entering the manifold. It's still not a direct indicator of airflow volume through the engine, but it does have much more close relation to engine power than the manifold pressure on naturally aspirated engines.
