just played il2 for the first time

[Pete]

hi all
i just played my brother's friends il2, he's letting me borrow it for a time

i have to say i enjoyed it alot, although im trying the first mission on career and i tried to take off manually and the plane started to veer of to the left or the right for no reason - can anyone help? what am i doing wrong?

anyway i ended up having to take off kinda of course to start with, so what i did was just put it in auto pilot and that brought me back on course,
then when i took it off auto pilot i had to keep my finger on the down arrow to just keep it flying straight, i couldnt go any higher than about 100 feet? any help?

then as i flew towards were on the map it said i had to bomd (i think) i discovered i didnt have any bombs even though there were blatant targets to destroy right below me and to add insult to injury my teammates just flew straight over the target and turned around, headed back to base, why?

im sure this is just a stupid mistake im making on all of these problems but im sure i will enjoy the game alot more if you can help me out

thanks
Pete

[Nick]

Hey Pete,

To address your problems one by one...

First off, plug in a joystick... this game is damn near impossible with a keyboard, its just too vicious an imput method... hitting the up or down arrows (especially down) will stall the plane out really easily, so get hld of a joystick, anything to start with and then be amazed at the difference.

The plane careening all over the place will be due to a couple of factors. The main one is the physics modelling on the plane. It is very very accurate, so the big thing causing a swing on your plane here is the propeller backwash. Cos the porp spins round, it creates a spiral airflow back down the plane... this gives one wing more lift (not too noticable) but it also smacks onto one side of the dirty great rudder at the back... very noticable... so you have to use a bit of rudder ('z'+'x' keys, iirc) to counter that. The last thing that can cause the swing is a crosswind, which you'll find quite often in the career mode.

As to not going very high, it depends on what plane you were flying. With a couple of exceptions, you'll ahve to get the undercarriage up otherwise the plane cant speed up and with no speed you get no lift... also, with flaps down you'll get the lift, but again it causes massive drag, so you'll have to get those in (gradually) to get some speed to get high. If you were carrying some bombs then this is doubly important as the bombs cause a fair bit of drag too.

Having to hit the down arrow is cos the plane is trying to climb all the time. Normally this is what you want. In this game height=energy=speed=advantage. SO if the plane wants to climb, let it... just dont let the speed drop too much or you'll go down... very quickly.

If you reach your desired height, you have to trim the plane. This is all about using some little flaps on the planes control surfaces to keep it flying in a certain way, slightly nose up, slightly nose down, tilted to the left... whatever you want really. iirc, the keys are 'SHIFT' + arrows keys to trim in that direction. If you trim for level flight, ie the nose doesn't creep up or down, then that is when your plane will be quickest... beware though... trimming too much nose down for level flight means you will turn a wider radius in a dogfight... not good... I general leave my planes trimmed to nose up and just fly with the stick held forward a tad...

I dont know why your mates didnt bomb the target... if this was a career mission then they should have been laoded up by the computer. You have to go into the aircraft arming screen before each mission and choose your load out from there. It depends on what floats your boat. I cant hit a barn door with a banjo when bombing. The safest place if I was bombing you would be directly on the target. However, gimme some rockets and I can shoot the willy of a greenfly at 1000 yards... or let me just spray the whole area with a cassette of mini bombs... this one is practise practise practise.

Hope this helps... let us know if you're hitting anymore problems!

[MA_Moby]

As well as being a flipping amazing game, IL2 is a very realistic flight sim. So because you have a single prop on the front rotating clockwise a couple of thngs will happen. You will notice a yaw to the left. The main reason for this is the slipstream effect , and the engine torque effect, both of which act in the opposite direction to the prop. So prop swings right, plane yaws left. This means you need a bit of right rudder to conteract, but not too much, or you'll up overcompensating and yawing right, then overcompensating again and getting intoa right old pickle. If you have a joystick with a twist grip for rudder action you'll find this easier. You can also tweak the deadzone on your rudder in IL2.

[Hat]

a wind up surely?

[MA_Moby]

a wind up surely?

what? a clockwork engine?

[Pete]

thanks guys i just played it again and i managed to take off in a straight line using z and x which i didnt know you could use

im gonna do some of this trimming then try that mission again
catch ya later
Pete

[Hat]

seriously... dont bother until youve got a joystick

There are probably a million things you have to do.. id pick any one of those instead

[turkster]

Yeah this is one game that is very annoying/impossible to play without a decent joystick. I gave it up a few months ago because my joystick doesnt have rudder control on it . I just couldnt stand the crappy response of the joystick etc especially as I am used to flying RC planes grrrr. I need to get the game adapter for this

Futaba FF6 my RC radio. It has 5 fully proportional channels and lots of switches etc for U/C, airbrakes etc. Just the thing for Il2

[Hat]

you arent goint to even TOUCH on the capabilty of this game using a keyboard....

.. then once youv'e got a joystick.. you'll need a better one

[[MA]DanglyBob]

Even with a decent joystick, you'll still need the keyboard for a lot of functions....

Unless you go for an X45....

[Nick]

Yeah, X45 rox... but if you're just starting out and not sure whether this game is for you, I'd say to get something a wee bit cheaper, like the Saitek Cyborg Gold... seems to be the stick of choice round here.

Got an X45 meself... once its set up you hardly need to touch the keyboard, but they're pricey...

[Zak33]

so...in essence....

A: you NEED a joystick
B: you NEED to read a vfew tutorials....and if at all POSSIBLE, sit next to someone to show you how.
C: if you enjoy it then wave a fond goodbye to your life and family....cos once you're hooked, you're hooked