My hate-love with IL-2

[Skybird]

A few days ago I bought a smile price edition of (a new, sealed) 1946, together with the addon Word War II. Unfortunately, the disc 1 did not install, nor could I open it manually - the disc made the hd and the discdrive crazy, I strongly assume that the secuRom messed up things there. It ended with me breaking the disc in to after patience died out, maybe you have read and smiled about my small thread on it at simHQ back then. Not much money lost, so no real damage done.

I then decided to do once again, after a very long absence, the installation tango with my old copies of of FB, ACE, PF, together with the needed steps in adding files and language settings in the registry, and then patching it up. I then installed the WWII addon, and started a german full career.

It really makes a difference, that career addon, and helps to get over the known traditional weakness of IL2, which is atmosphere. Things are not optimal, but better than if fiddling around with Uberdemon's QMG.

However, the same old symptoms that have spoiled fun for me in earlier times, appeared again. AI pilots handling their engines and propellers absolutely perfectly and uberhuman, since they handle binary code, and do not react to simulated events like the human player. Planes all of a sudden go zooming away in sprint. My Bf109F, that is supposed to have advantages in speed and acceleration over that opposing fighter model and already flying 500+ km/h, getting overtaken by that thing on my six that all of a sudden behaves as having a liquidised superman in it's tank. The 3x360-all-aspect viewing bubble around the AI, making it see me even if I am approaching it from under it or behind it were the pilot is supposed not to be able to see me, since the AI does not care for viewing aspects, only for contact distances. The better the pilot setting, the more robust not only his manouvering, but also the armour of his plane?! - well, this feature tops it all, and has nothing to do with simulation anymore! that is pure arcade style. What is just missing is the big end-level boss at the end of an air duel.

These are things that I always thought to really cripple the simulation claim of IL-2 in SP. I am very much aware that I do not fly in a simulated reality, but in an arcade-game where the player somewhat gets "cheated" due to the symptoms above. a real sim would need to make the AI behave within the natural limits of being human, that is: no superperfect handling of mixture and cooler and propeller within just split sconds, no x-ray eyes, etc. It would be all nice and fair if they would only promote the game as a MP exlcusive event only, to be sued online only and exclusively, but to call it a simulation in SP is a bit too optimistic. Add to it weaknesses in the handling concept, like that you cannot manually change waypoints, and your squad, after having drifted off from the flightpath due to a large battle, not just proceeding back to the next waypoint, but flies back to the old one it has already passed by a huge distance, before it turns for the next that it already had reached before.

I now read and searched over these issues more than I have ever done before in recent years, and found my observations all confirmed and well-known to the community. I also found hints for AI mods.

I downloaded one of these, in version 3.0, it built a mod folder in the installation folder of the game, there is a AI_mod folder, and inside of it there are four files and a readme listing the version changes. As far as I am aware I installed it correctly, according to the instructions (it was an autoinstaller that was just pointed to the installation folder of IL-2).

However, I fail to see the big effect. All the symptoms I described above are still rpesent, both in QMG missions, and the campaign.

My question now is are there any alternative mods to improve the bad symptoms I complained about? Else I already can see my interest dying in the near future again, like it has died in the years before repeatedly, and this time probably forever. I mean, doing dogfights in F4AF is much more rewarding with guns-only and gives me not such an intense feeling of getting "cheated" in the way I described above, with no Uber-AI having 360°-all-aspect eyes that can see through the airframe, and Warp-engine superboosters suddenly overtaking a well-handled, trimmed opponent assumed to have a superior engine, etc.

Currently I like the campaign addon and I also like the looks of sky, sunlight and clouds in IL-2 and I cannot share complaints of how bad the game nowaday looks due to it's age, in the opinion of some people. I would really appreciate a massive improvement in the AI issues, and then maybe stay with IL-2, finally. but the way it is now, the marriage is doomed to get divorced again. and nobody can tell me I haven't tried - I tried repeatedly since the very first IL-2.

Any tips for improving the AI in SP? Just telling me to go online you must not, I am not interested in that aspect of it. I am exclusively talking about offline management.