any easy kills on IL-2?

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Originally Posted by Lowe

Blimey, I remember teaching those to you :D

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:mrgreen:


many a happy hour Lowe :woowoo:

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Originally Posted by Veles

All that is just straight over my head :p

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Lets just say I've been flying virtual planes since I was a kid. Most of my experience is in fast jets but the underlying principles are the same for all aerial combat. Dak and I used to play CS in a clan, and one of the other members introduced us to IL2 when it was first released. I had a bit of an advantage over the other guys (I could turn a P-39 without stalling for a start!) so I ran a series of tutorial evenings online and helped get everyone up to speed. Dak took to it like a fish to water, and has gone on to do bigger and better things with IL2, whereas I went back to fast jets on LOMAC. :)

I'll post up the principles behind the Scissors and the Yo Yos in a bit :)

Lets start with a basic terminology. When I refer to E, I'm referring to energy. A plane that's flying fast has lots of E. It can climb without too much trouble, it can turn quickly, but when it does it will have a wide turning circle. A plane with less E will turn quicker, but won't be able to escape easily or climb away out of trouble. Some planes require you to keep plenty of E on tap; others are superior in a low E situation... However don't confuse E with speed. A plane that's flying very high but very slowly has plenty of E...

You'll find when getting into a dogfight that it's a battle of circles unless someone is using the boom and zoom approach. B&Z is much more important in WW2 dogfights since the majority of planes don't have huge power to weight ratios so couldn't power their way out of a low E (energy) situation. Altitude is incredibly important to managing your speed and E. Climb and you'll get higher, but you'll lose speed. Dive, and you'll obviously get lower but you'll gain speed. A successful pilot will always manage their E to ensure their plane is at its most manoeuvrable, but allowing plenty in reserve to get away in one piece.

Right, the Yo-Yo.

The Yo-Yo manoeuvre comes in two flavours. The High G Yo-Yo and the Low G Yo-Yo. The High G variant trades E for altitude, the Low G trades altitude for E.

Imagine turning into a dogfight with you placed behind the target, with the target flying away. You have more E than your target and you're gaining quickly. Your target turns hard, and as you turn to follow you realise you're going to overshoot and your target will turn inside you. The High G Yo-Yo will mean you can turn and maintain position, bleed off some speed but without compromising your E.

As you turn in and realise you're going to be out-turned, climb whilst you turn. Keep turning as you climb and you'll quickly bleed off the extra speed allowing you to turn with your target. Once your target completes the turn, you’ll find they’ll probably start to pull away from you since you’ve bled off your speed. However you’re still in a high E situation. By trading your height for speed, you can catch up the target without overshooting, get into a good position and pepper them full of holes. ;)

http://www.flightsimbooks.com/jfs/101-1.jpg

A Low G Yo-Yo is the opposite. You find yourself nice and high, but you haven’t got enough speed to stay with your target. By diving as you turn you’ll close the gap and get into a good firing position, but obviously you won’t be able to stay pointing nose up in the firing position for a long time. You’ll get a shot, but make the most of it!

http://www.flightsimbooks.com/jfs/99-1.jpg

Gotta do some work now, but I'll do the scissors for you in a bit. ;)

Right the Scissors is one that looks a lot more complicated than it actually is.

http://www.f22totalairwar.de/Air_Com...s_Scissors.gif

It typically follows a Yo-Yo or any other situation where an attacking aircraft moves into the position of lining up a shot. To throw off the attacker, the defender breaks hard one way or the other. At this point the attacking aircraft has to react quickly and follow the turn. Once the attacker is committed to following, the defender then breaks hard the other way. It should be noted this is a risky strategy since you may inadvertently fly across the nose of the attacker opening you up to a pot shot! These hard turns bleed speed off very quickly, which potentially leads to a situation that forces the attacker to overshoot. At this point depending upon the initial defenders E state, they can either reverse the roles and then go on the attack, or bug out and get back to a neutral position.

Depending upon the initial airspeed the scissors can either last a couple of turns or potentially many with a modern jet fighter on afterburners. One thing to consider though, either way, unless you've got lots of altitude, a long drawn out Scissors manoeuvre will quickly deplete you of E, leaving you a sitting duck for a foes wingman who's been circling above. It potentially leaves you in a position unable to escape so only get drawn into this kind of fight if you've got altitude to spare, or you've got plenty of power available to disappear off the horizon quick smart!

Awesome, thanks Lowe. I'll try putting that into practice on BS: M and IL2 when it finally arrives.

Another excellent maneuver for a noobie to learn is the rope-a-dope

After a head on pass your opponent will often (especially if he's a bit green aroung the gills) crank his plane into a hard turn to try and get his guns onto you, he'll be expecting you to do exactly the same

but you don't, instead you went full throttle and pulled your nose up into a steep climb, so now he's bled speed and energy in his turn, he's 2000ft below you craning his head around trying to spot you.

You now have the advantage. :cool:

Only works on n00bs tho and you say - anyone sensible using a padlock will see you climbing up like a monkey and be prepared for such antics after they start to break. :) A worthy tactic though, catches many people out.

Im rather fond of the split S if you have the height advantage

So I'm guessing you can get some nice teamwork going on in this game with wingmen, sounds very cool, hopefully mine will arrive on monday and give a use for my flight stick since I stopped playing BF2.

Online this game is all about teamwork, quite a few virtual wars flown as coops...8 v 8 to 16 v 16.

Mission objectives ie escort, intercept, ground attack.

Plenty to suit whatever suits you, I tend to fly escort to bombers and ground attack planes, ( as for some reason I cant hit the bloody ground with a bomb let alone a tank) with a decent wingman in tow you can really do some damage....Hehe thats a whole new set of tactics. Wingman is a very difficult role to play, greed for kills has no place in a team situation....Many a time Ive been hi up circling and covering MA_Hat whilst he has been engaged, and have often had the favour return. Not having to worry about checking your 6 because someone else is doing it for you is a luxuary

Just arrived this morning and had a quick bash at it in single player. It's pretty damn hard, at first I thought my joystick was busted, since when I was attempting to take off, I was veering all over the place (still havn't managed to take off without busting my prop yet :p) but looking in the setup it all seems fine.

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Originally Posted by Veles

(still havn't managed to take off without busting my prop yet :p)

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try taking off from an aircraft carrier :D 50th time lucky for me :)

still can't land on them.....struggled with landing on ground on occasions....though i did manage landing a one wheeled, on fire, tank leaking, big ar*e russian bomber :) my finest moment so far

completely forgot about this thread and IL-2! might go now and try to master the moves Lowe gave me :/

whats the best plane to do this with? (eg. easiest to handle (if thats the right word for a plane lol))

thanks

edit: anyone willing to teach me, i have a whole day free tommorow :)

OK, for all those of you who started out any where near as badly as I did....long ago I made a film about how to set up the game to practice take off in.

Watch it, make notes and then do it yaself. It shows you how to set up a map with just you, on the ground, for take off practice.

Long long ago, I was really really cack, though I'm a lot better now...but it is 4 years! My missus Sair/Rias picked it up a lot better, and the best thing I did was show her the basics and then let her get on with it herself, because some people are naturally more talented than others, and are better finding out themselves.

Manouveres...hard this. It all SOUNDS ideal and I use High Yo Yo a lot, as I tend to try to start fights from mucho's E states...ie high...high ...high. And I'm good at spotting planes low down.

BUT...I can't shoot for toffee....I'm uber crap at it as all my fellow fighter jocks will attest. SO I get into great positions, and miss.

I'll host up some manouvres in a mo as well, some films of them. Not made in IL-2, but small, easy to watch files :)

Noobs Guide to Taking Off


Hi Yo Yo

SCISSOR

LO Yo Yo

With all these films, most people find they only play if you SAVE them to your HDD and then watch. Dunno why, but Media Player doesnt like them streamed!

thanks Zak, gives me something to do when i've finished coursework :(