EmerlistDavjack

And now for something completely different: My dad used to play a CD of Sea Shanties on roadtrips, so I have some bizarre affinity for nautical music. This happens to be a neo-prog nautical-esque masterpiece from Roine Stolt of The Flower Kings (he plays every instrument except alto-sax and drums).

Lol, yup. I'd much rather the devs just let us know how it works.

I like that about the 109K4: There is a physical gauge in the cockpit that shows whether or not you have MW-50 left. Timer or no, when that pressure drops, you stop going WEP! Re: Luft, I highly doubt that what is going on in this game has to do with engine temps (sadly...), since it is possible on planes like the P-47 to keep the engine from overheating with rads/intercooler. You can even keep the engine cooler than "boost temps" during boost, as given by the color coding/dash placards that we Americans love so much. Maybe some of the Ruski planes that I don't fly have a tendency for temps to correlate to boost, but it doesn't seem like that with the LW. It really does feel like a timer on the planes that don't have injection fluids. Here is my idea for science! For any given plane: take at least 5 flights at 1km alt, level flight, max emergency/boost power. Average the time it takes for technochat to register "Engine damaged." Now, take at least 5 flights and run Emergency power for 1 minute less than the average time given above (if the average is 5'30'', run for 4'30''). At that point, switch to Combat power for one minute, then back to Emergency power until the technochat registers "engine damaged." Add the time it takes to damage the engine from the second application of Emergency power to 4'30'', and then compare that to the first average. This should determine whether or not 1 minute of reduction to Combat power (within margin of error) results in 1 minute more of Emergency power. Repeat the above test, but using Continuous power instead of combat power to attempt to recharge the damage timer, which will give a result that will tell you whether or not Continuous recharges the damage timer faster than Combat power. This is probably different for every plane, and probably different from Combat to Continuous. I will definitely do this (and more!) for the P-38.

Good video, Raz! I think the answer to all my questions is to spend hours doing real world testing because the devs have not release any in-depth explanations. Loopy (not much good information there, as I say, this is a dead horse topic): https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/43632-how-come-the-yak-1-and-lagg-3-can-use-full-throttle-in-continuous-operation-power-setting/

I wrote all this in the main IL2 forums and then thought, hey, maybe JG1 knows more about it, or at least we can have a more concentrated discussion without some of the...more "interesting" members of the IL2 forums. I'll be honest, one of the main factors why I haven't been playing Multiplayer IL2 is that not understanding the Engine Timers fully feels...wrong. What pilot would go into combat not understanding "hidden" design features in his aircraft? Why isn't the mechanic at least in some way tied to in-plane instruments? I feel like the only thing worse than this whole engine-timer-balance system is that we (or I) don't have enough information. If they are going to implement a "hidden" system like this (IE not tied to any indication on the in-plane instruments), they need to tell us how exactly it works so that we can factor that information into our flying. If real life planes had worked like this, the militaries involved would have rigorously tested the planes and communicated with pilots what exactly is going on, so that they know how "recharging" works. I feel really uncomfortable with the gap in knowledge when I play this game. No pilot should not know how his machine works.  EDIT: See below for some basic testing where I figured out that most planes, unless otherwise stated in the specs, "regenerate" their timer at half the time you spend at a lower mode. 2 min of Cont recharges 1 minute of Combat, etc.

All I really want is a highly detailed P-38.

I did not know/recall the 5 minute rule for Discos and violated that last week, and have likely violated it a few times before. I now know better. Thanks for the reminder, Klaiber!

I laughed pretty good when the friendly hit you near the end. Thanks for posting the video, looking forward to this weekend.

Somehow I keep managing to bring em down. S!

Hallo, I just got this custom build delivered, and I mentioned it oft-hand and Luftritter wanted to see more. So here she is: Davjack's GVL build. Uh, actually just see this post here on the IL2 forums for a couple photos and a description of the build quality. https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/23758-iron-mechanic-throttle-motor-control-axes/?page=8&tab=comments#comment-725685 In a nutshell, this is a very well built piece, and it was built to my specifications, and that is really satisfying, even if I made mistakes on the labels, and I did. That labeling is laser etched into the finish on the metal, but a piece of tape and a fine point pen solves any of my own mistakes. For instance, the Trim Up/Down switch is redundant, since I can use my Joystick's hat switch, but I didn't understand that when I made the design. Vitalij made exactly what I asked him to make. There are 4 levers and 4 wheels (4 main levers, 2 wheels on the side, a wheel on the thumb position under the throttle, and a wheel/dial on the front body labeled as Oil Rad). The thumb wheel being "zoom" allows me to bind the hat switch on my stick as trim, which is realistic in DCS and also convenient. This setup gives me a full tactile setting on manual for the P-47 in IL2: Mix/Prop/Throttle/Turbo/Intercooler/OutletCowlFlaps can be each an independent piece. In fact, the rear-right wheel is dedicated for outlet cowl flaps, which are rarely used in flight for fighters. It's nice to be able to feel them, though. Other planes are more simple. While this unit lacks a Hat Switch, the 9 buttons on the end of the throttle offer good versatility (including being used for TS and TIR management). GVL's encoders use "hat switch" logic, so you can't have both. The encoder (grey wheel) on the throttle handle adjusts gunsight range. My rear 3 encoder/buttons are labeled R1/R2/Nav like a GA aircraft stack, in prep for Deadstick. In IL2, I use those encoders for 110/Spitfire manual rads. Last note: the analogue switches are the same basic American switches that were physically used in the P-47. The whole build is metal and resin...like an original WWII aircraft. I can't overstate how nice that feels. If you've handled old equipment vs newer plastic stuff, you'll know what I mean. I have already disassembled the main body in order to investigate making a custom "throttle gate" for WEP/Afterburners on various aircraft, and it is very fixable if anything goes wrong. Unlike a dedicated PCB build, I could replace a piece of this build using a soldering iron and basic skills. My "throttle gate" will be a simple piece of thick rubber sheet placed such that it causes slight friction at the point where the throttle lever hits Combat Power, with different sheets for different planes. Really important for Afterburners in DCS... Overall: I love it! I can't speak to this unit vs another, but for $305 I am completely satisfied that GVL took 1 month to email with me and design a custom piece, and delivered a work of art. The only problems are my own, for some labels don't fully work with Il2 because I didnt fully understand the game, but tape and memorizing re-binds fixes all of that The unit is solid metal, nothing wiggles, and if it doesn't last a lifetime, I can fix it. I would recommend buying a unit from Vitalij. He does sell a lot of cheaper modules that are made from the same high quality units, but have less functionality. He will also make insanely detailed 737 stacks, as you can see on page 7 of his IL2 thread. https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/23758-iron-mechanic-throttle-motor-control-axes/?page=7&tab=comments#comment-691937 I personally love the value from mine: it is all metal and strong resin. It was made to my spec. You can see all sorts of what he does here: https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/23758-iron-mechanic-throttle-motor-control-axes/ EDIT: And yes, this sounds like a total advertisement, but I will say that I only ever promote products that I actually use, ever, anywhere.

Lol, keep talkin at the same frequency, man. Glad to see you found a solution, but I am sort of puzzled at the whole problem. I just got my custom throttle body from GVL, and I was expecting to have to use 3rd party software, since Windows can only "see" 32 buttons in the Device Utility. But it turns out that every button on the device will bind to BoX/RoF/DCS and even TS with no complaints. I decided to keep TS on my MSFFB2 (because my hand never leaves the stick), but it was working on the throttle unit. You've found your solution, so this is just an academic question on my part because I am curious as to why Virpil buttons wouldn't be seen by TS: What happens if you don't install the VPC program and just attach the units as USB devices?

I think it's pretty cool that JG1 is leading the charge into FC with the server. I've been busy this past month, but I am looking forward to getting some FC action in the near future...provided it doesn't snow again and I am compelled to snowboard.

Happy New Year! Looking forward to FiF 2019.

Hope you all had a nice day/evening with your families!

That's basically when the Vintage Mission ends, for those who want to fly both.

I thought I only had 4! Good work, team! I thoroughly enjoyed FiF with you all.

If you haven't had the chance, I highly recommend you visit Gettysburg whenever you can. The way they have restored the battlefield, the quality of the museums, the ground itself...you won't find a better battlefield park in the US. The views from Little Round Top, walking/running to Cemetery Ridge across the field of Pickett's charge...powerful. Though, there is now a KFC on the spot where the 8th Ohio began their flanking movement. Irony! Haha. I was at the museum, and a little boy pointed to a musette bag and asked, "Is that where they kept their laptops?" Lol, kids!

Great short, Hotlead! Of all the little things, the youth of the two main actors really sold it for me.

Sometimes I go back to Procol Harum: EDIT: Kate Davis is amazing!

I do like how the 103rd does those reports, I must say. Glad to have yall as Frenemies.

Us simmers are not normals lol. I have a good friend who plays FPS/RTS games, and he can't stand my giant screen because it places things in his periphery instead of in his central vision. You're probably right that RoF viewing distance is optimized for 1080p since it's an old engine, but the image must look better at higher res, since downsampling does help. Above I was talking only about image quality, like the OP video, but the real crux for flight sims is the viewing distance of aircraft, something the BoX forums discuss ad naseum, and my takeaway is that different games do it differently. BoX seems to scale everything to be visible inside 10km or not at all. DCS seems to use some calculation based on distance/viewing angle to decide when 1 Pixel should show up, and that results in different experiences across resolutions. You've likely seen this video comparing DCS at 1080 vs 1440p: I'm intrigued by this comment on the page: Thrash Sim: "Maybe this would help you guys out, I had the same problem with other simulators but since I only do acrobatics on DCS I can't really confirm it. I have fixed this issue by turning off every antialiasing option in every game (IL-2, WT etc.) I'm not sure if its suggested in the video, so I apologize if I'm repeating something. Antialiasing simply "smooths" pixels and if the aircraft is 1/5 pixels it will most likely remove/smooth it. I'm also on 4k and I no longer have spotting issues. This is also the same reason why VR users can see everything till the horizon, basically low graphics, little or no antialiasing adn low pixel density on the VR screens." Goes along with what I was saying above, that at 4k aliasing becomes much less of a deal. Makes me wonder what that looks like up close, aliasing-wise, since I've never sat in front of a 4k TV playing a game. Something to research before I drop the dough. He also claims that VR users can see better in some games (DCS?), whereas on the BoX forums, VR users have nothing but complaints. Makes me think that the best thing to do is to find the sweet spot for the game you care about most, and just deal with it elsewhere.

All that human eye/perception stuff and how your brain constructs images and adjusts for color is so fascinating. I wonder how many times I've missed a long range contact in RoF because he was sitting in one of those blind spots, lol! It's been a long time since Human Factors in college, but I recall your "resting focal distance" is around the same distance as the average car windshield. Try actively relaxing your eyes while in a car and see how the crud on your windshield pops right out at you. I see his whole point about the format being a leap for the average consumer, but I disagree about "not seeing the pixels" meaning "overkill," since the entire point of a clear image is to *not* see pixels! If I can discern pixels, something is not optimal. That said...I feel almost no need for a better screen than a 1080p for watching movies on my couch. As for gaming, I think that 4k is absolutely necessary for us Big-Screen flight simmers, general public be damned! And I agree with Luftritter that these flight sims can really ratchet up the adrenaline and so higher FPS might actually matter for us more than your standard shooter-gamer. There's a big difference between Twitch-shooter playing and a combat flight sim. At least for me, no other video game comes close to getting me worked up like Rise of Flight. It's amazing how the "time slows down" effect is linked to something like the ability to discern a single frame at high FPS. Coming from a background in digital photography, I noticed that he only said the term "pixel density" at the very end of the video, and doesn't seem to point out why that matters. It was a big deal in early digital photography when comparing images of a Crop Frame vs Full Frame camera with the same pixel count. Pixel density is the crux of 4k for me because ever since I was young, I have been fighting a battle against Aliasing. I haaaaattteeee it. So it does not matter at all to me that my eye can barely discern the dot of single pixel...nor do I think it matters to anybody watching a movie. The image as a whole is better. Much of the aliasing on a large screen have been quashed by the pixel density. I don't often go to theaters, but I think digital projection looks like straight up ass. As said in the video, many movies weren't filmed in 4k, so blowing them up on a big screen with a digital projector instead of film invites artifacts and *shudder* aliasing where there should be film grain/blur. I'd much rather see Dunkirk looking spectacular in 70mm IMAX. I thought I had Aliasing beat until I upgraded to a 46" 1080p TV-as-monitor for the immersive TIR/simpit experience. The pixel density is not enough, and only 4k will solve that...whenever I get around to budgeting for the upgrades. Right now it is ugly, but fine, and I am saving up for a Nikon D800. 36 Megapixels of full-frame image perfection down to the last crop. If anybody here does use 4k on a large 4k TV, I would be very interested to know if you can trade off GPU load of the 4k rendering by lowering/eliminating Anti-aliasing, and it still looks good rendering mid-range aircraft in RoF/BoX. That's one problem with target identification: at a certain range they all look like jaggy crap with wings. Anyway, thanks for the video. I'm kinda a nerd about this stuff heh.

Oh wow I did not expect this to be showing in my little part of California. Thanks for the link big time!

That sounds delicious, Luft. I hope you all have a happy day this Thanksgiving, American or no!

Augh, of course they released it when I don't have a lot of time to game, lol. I did hop in the Camel for a few minutes without my pedals and...it does seem too easy to fly. Just flew it around with my joystick, no problems. That doesn't sound like the Camel that killed so many careless pilots. EDIT: The FC thread is actually not that toxic, if a bit long winded. https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/41053-easy-camel/ In summary: ZachX argues that lower speeds would require more rudder, and that makes sense to me. It also correlates to the anecdote that most pilots killed by the Camel were on takeoff or landing...slow and too low. I haven't landed one yet in BoX. So, I'm not saying it is wrong or overpowered, just that it feels very different than RoF. Also some people on the FC forums have been saying that wing-folding is greatly reduced...which is nice...although with the BoX engine Camel I pulled one of those asymmetrical-snap-stall-longitudinal/lateral-axis rotations that the WWII planes perform at high speeds, that was over-G'd so hard that I would never believe a WWI biplane could take that force at sea level without ripping apart. I mean, I don't know if the aircraft IRL would have even spun/flipped like that, but it feels wrong to flip around that much at high (170km/h) speeds, wings going perpendicular to the airstream in a split second. Those high speed asym stalls are one of those things in the BoX FM that I just don't know enough about. Otherwise, beautiful. I hope MP doesn't lose its shine before I get to put some time in. \m/