BATTLE OF BRITAIN II

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

CoD is clearly way ahead of the IL-2 sims... setting up 109-Es against Hurricanes in '1946' just didn't capture the right feel, and your video makes me envious.

To elaborate a bit on what Hunter wrote:
1946 was a "what if" add on that was attached to the regular Il2 series. It contained some new aircraft that were in the pipe but didn't finish development before the end of the war. You were not forced to use them or use any other plane in 1946. You could just as well play in 1941 for the planes of that time.

[Dowly]

Fairly sure Mr. Squirrel meant the title.

[Eichhörnchen]

Yes I was just referring to 'IL-2:1946'... just saying that you could select early 109s and Hurricanes to approximate a 1940 duel over Kent, but it never felt like that. I don't know whether any of the addons (like 'Battle Over Europe') feature maps for recognisably English countryside.

Anyway, I don't like the sounds in IL-2 either: the 109s all sound like motorbikes and the Spitfires and Hurricanes sound like Cessnas or something. I love the engine sounds in 'BoB'... when another fighter goes past, you really notice that.

I haven't been keeping up with IL-2, but as far as I remember you are strictly prevented from modding engine sounds and suchlike, unlike some other flight sims.

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

Yes I was just referring to 'IL-2:1946'... just saying that you could select early 109s and Hurricanes to approximate a 1940 duel over Kent, but it never felt like that. I don't know whether any of the addons (like 'Battle Over Europe') feature maps for recognisably English countryside.

Anyway, I don't like the sounds in IL-2 either: the 109s all sound like motorbikes and the Spitfires and Hurricanes sound like Cessnas or something. I love the engine sounds in 'BoB'... when another fighter goes past, you really notice that.

I haven't been keeping up with IL-2, but as far as I remember you are strictly prevented from modding engine sounds and suchlike, unlike some other flight sims.

Modding IL-2 used to be problematic in the past, but it's pretty wildly accepted nowadays, and both complete sound replacement mods and proper Battle of Britain maps do exist for it.

[HunterICX]

Aahh..gotcha.

While modding IL2:1946 was forbidden, it still was done and later it became accepted and no one would stick to the vanilla game because of the horrible sounds and lack of more variety in maps like a proper channel map and the variants of aircraft like earlier spits and hurricanes.

Thus many mod packs came out since then and the best known and afaik still supported is HSFX:


Also a great deal of work has been done to Cliffs of Dover by Team Fusion irrc but I'm not really up to date to what extend they've ''fixed'' the game.

Still both games offer no match for the superb single player experience BOBII gives you but if you fancy a flight online I guess it's up to personal preference if you wish to focus on just the Battle of Britian or other theaters as well.

[Eichhörnchen]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

Still both games offer no match for the superb single player experience BOBII gives you but if you fancy a flight online I guess it's up to personal preference if you wish to focus on just the Battle of Britian or other theaters as well.

I'm sure glad to hear you say that. The cloudscapes are so good in BoBII, a great improvement on Rowan's BoB, like everything else.

I saw a preview of CoD on a disc free with 'PC Pilot' magazine some long time ago now, and it all looked fantastic. But I seem to recall that once it came out it was troublesome.

Thanks for that link, btw... I'll go look at that in a minute. Does it require a Steam or U-Play account or any kind of activation for offline play (I would expect so these days).

[HunterICX]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

I saw a preview of CoD on a disc free with 'PC Pilot' magazine some long time ago now, and it all looked fantastic. But I seem to recall that once it came out it was troublesome.

At release it was really an unoptimized stinker, even when obtaining a better rig later didn't help much regarding performance and after that I just gave up on it. It didn't help the official support was dropped not so long after and the game didn't met it's full potential as what was promised.
Team Fusion the guys who picked up the mess after the devs dropped it managed from what I have heard to do a pretty nice job but I haven't bothered to try it and probably never will.

Thanks for that link, btw... I'll go look at that in a minute. Does it require a Steam or U-Play account or any kind of activation for offline play (I would expect so these days).

Which game?
I've got IL2 1946 on DVD which requires no account, third party application like Steam/Uplay or a constant internet connection to play.

I've got IL2: Cliffs of Dover from Steam. (can't comment on physical copies or other distributors)

[Eichhörnchen]

...The 'Cliffs of Dover', but I haven't looked for a while to see whether a disc is still available, and it would have to be a physical copy for me.

I can run '1946' properly on this new gaming rig. Before, on my old PC, the clouds used to kill the frame rates so I always had to fly with them turned off. But to me, the clouds were actually much better-looking in 'Forgotten Battles', and did nothing to harm my frame rates, so I never understood why they had to go and "improve" them for '1946'.

Here's a screenshot I gathered last night from 'BoBII'. I was looking at the great clouds in this... just as good as any you'll see in, say, 'FS2004'.



I think maybe I had the screen resolution wrong when I took this (I've been experimenting) as the prop and canopy glass are missing. Mind you, that sometimes happens when you take screenshots in other flight sims, such as CFS3. It can be a bit hit and miss.

[Eichhörnchen]

Take a look at this short film. It's popular to scoff at cgi in aerial combat scenes now but I used to say years ago, when it was first used in sci-fi movies, that I couldn't wait until they got around to WW2. This looks darned good to me...

[Eichhörnchen]

And this from the classic movie: