Hedu's IL-2 Bar and Grille

Head on Ramming. Its your fault too....

2008-04-24T18:01:00.000-07:00

Everybody has seen them, everybody has been a victim, and sadly, EVERYBODY is at fault. The Head On Ram (HOR), is an all too common happening in the arena. People would LOVE to say that it is the newbies, but that would make them hypocrites. You may say to yourself "I don't do that!". Well, yes you do. There are only a few pilots who don't, and rest assured, you ain't one of them.

The HOR comes from a few faults and reasonings that are common to all flight sim. First, everyone believes that their armement load out is big enough to make the other plane explode before contact. Truth is, I fly an 190 A-9, and even I know thats not true. Even if it was semi true, why do I see lightly armed fighters doing this. A heavier armament does mean more offensive power, but that power has to hit the other plane, and you are firing at the smallest plane silhouette that can be exposed to you. The leading edge of wings provide the smallest target profile possible. Unless you can group into the engine, you aren't gonna hit as much as you think.
Second, there is no penalty for stupid flying that causes your own death. You get to log right back an and fly. Death for an online sim is a chance to drink some soda between dogfights. Had it been a penalty of 10 minutes for both pilots, the HOR might not happen as much as you think.
Third, in Il-2, if you blow up the other pilot, all debri becomes nonexistant in the physical realm. Fly right through that fireball! That wing that was coming at you at 400 mph no longer has substance! Its a ghost wing! Maddox forgot that a 10,000 lb plane that blows up becomes about 9000 lbs of flying shrapnel. Forget the burning airplane fuel, its in heaven with your dead pets. It can't hurt you.
Fourth, the thrill of that kill. Gotta get that kill! Forget the otherplanes around! Forget extending and escaping and landing! Forget dragging back to a base or to a close friendly! Forget living! (see rule #2). Sometimes its better to land than to push your luck. That goes hand in hand with rule 5, bad air combat manuevers (ACM) and bad situational awareness (SA). Some pilots know only to turn back into someone and attack. How about a spiral climb to get him to bleed energy? Know your plane and know his, and a world of new ACM becomes available. Treat every fight like your fighting Zeroes, and your screwed.

Only you can prevent HORs, and isnt it about damn time you did?

Why its tough both ways....

2008-04-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

This one is for the misunderstood. Believe me, we are them.
Admins have it tough. They have to babysit people who don't want to be babysat. Pilots have it tough. They don't want to be babysat by admins who don't want to have to babysit. Because neither side wants to either babysit or be babysat, confrontations can come to a head quickly.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

Get to know your admins. Let the admins get to know you. When an admin sees something wrong in the arena, he has a lot of info he has to compute quickly. Does he know the "trangressor"? Is this pilot trouble? Is he a newbie? How serious is his "crime"? Is it a first time offense? Did it really happen as someone reports it? Did the admin see what he thought he saw? What the hell did that pilot just say in the radio buffer? The admin has to process this info, and even if he has the answers, it STILL may not be enough for him to make an informed decision. And if your a jerk when he questions you about it, odds are not good you will be allowed to fly that night. If the admin questions you, which he should do in a nice, polite, non-accusing manner, you should return favor and answer. Explain to him the situation. If you didn't see the target bail, tell him that. If you shot a plane that was falling apart before you knew what was going on, be honest, tell him you fired before you reckognized the condition of the target. If the admin gets to know you as a pilot, your reputation will carry you through situations. Be a jerk, get treated like a jerk. Be honest and respectful, get treated in same.

Now, this is to the admins. I know your jobs are tough. You get called away from your own flying, you have whiners all over the map crying they got robbed, and you got guys with callsigns that would make a mother blush. Its like a room full of 3rd graders on a sugar high. All I can ask is this: Have patience with the 3rd graders. All sometimes is not what it seems. Case in point:

Crashwingman, a new pilot to the arena, was on teamspeak with my brother Snitchy and I. He was red and we were blue, but we started chatting with him and discovered he had the same joystick as my brother. My brother helped him get a good profile set up, and Crash joined us on the blue side for some flying. We continued talking joystick set up, and fought against the red in the same general area. Crash and my brother went after a plane. Crash hit it and the wing started coming off. Snitchy fired at that time, hit the plane, and was given the kill credit. Right away, some pilot started yelling on the radio buffer for Snitchy to be banned. Crash, being the good guy, said no, don't ban him. The admin did not ban Snitchy, and we all flew for quite a while more. What could have been a knee jerk reaction to an accident could have ruined a session for a new pilot and the guys trying to help him. Luckily, it didn't, through the grace of a good new guy and an admin that took the time to see banning wasn't a good idea.

So in summation, both sides need to take a look and assess the situation. It is tough when you don't know the other guy, but a little time and patience pays off in a big way.

The cold hard facts about "Realism".

2008-04-12T16:13:00.000-07:00

It ain't in the game.
There are 400 different type of arena settings, and there are always pilots who believe that "full realism" is the only setting, the only honest setting, the setting that best represents true dogfighting.
It ain't.
Full realism gives you no icons, engine management and head shake. Lets go over a few of the things that people demand for realsim that really aren't real.
Icons. People say you don't fly with icons in real life, you had to I.D. your enemy. True, you did, but many factors play into IL-2 that DON"T let you do that. If you were an Allied pilot in the ETO, you rigourously trained in identification. Identifying marks, Unit colors, plane silohouttes were drilled into your head, and you still had a tough time telling a P-51B from a 109 or a FW190 form an I.A.R 80. But you had an Idea what you were flying up against, what to look for. You also had better eyesite than a computer monitor, no matter what resolution you fly at. Flat out, you can't I.D. what you are fighting on a monitor as well you can in real life. You need the icon to compinsate for lack of true physical abilities. Members of the Black Sheep have told me that Pappy Boyington could see planes taking off from an airstrip at 20,000ft. Try that in IL-2. You can't. And lets settle this point right now in the only way some refuseniks will except without their egos destroyed. REAL-LIFE(tm) fighter pilots have said this to me personally, that the eye sees better than what a monitor can produce, and that icons are needed in flight sims to make up for this. Let me name drop so that you can understand that I have personally asked this very question to some guys that would know. Robin Olds. James McWhorter. Robert "Punchy" Powell jr., Francis Gabreski. I think we can close this part of the discussion. REAL-LIFE(tm) fighters pilots said so. Who are you to argue?

Catostrophic engine failure. It exists in real life. It ain't in the game. Do you think anyone would fly that N1k2 if they had to put up with the real life engine failures that plane had? Hell, my brother Snitchy flies it like its a dialysis machine. He is ALWAYS in it. Would he fly it if its engine blew on the climb out, or it quit after climbing to 15000ft? HELL NO. Face it, with engine failure realism, you wouldn't fly some of the planes you do, and you might not fly at all.

More on realism later, I gotta go see my girlfriend. Shes hot.

Get teamSpeak.....NOW!

2008-04-06T21:06:00.001-07:00

Good equipment helps you in tremendous ways. Good HOTAS, TrackIR, that kind of stuff. Lets talk TeamSpeak.
TeamSpeak (get it here) is a very useful tool once yout get it set up and running. Easy to download and install, your hardest part is the connection, and once you have that figured your in everytime. After installing, your gonna get a choice when trying to log on of "connect" and "quick connect". I choose quick connect and this is the address you put in the server address box : 78.129.193.3:9192. Put your callsign in the nickname box, and the password is "magic". You will enter the AAA server and have a choice of channels to join. Pick a side of Red or Blue, or hang out in the lobby, what ever you want to start out on. Alot of the admins hang out and fly while in the lobby, so go there if you want to get a hang of how things work. Don't ask questions about mod help, because just like the radio buffer in the arena, mod questions are not welcome there, they are intended for the forums.
IL-2 is international. Even tho English is the official language of aviation (look it up), you are gonna get languages and accents up the wazoo. I logged on and the admins were all there and I thought I was on the Monty Python show. This has its good side, because they know the only voice without an english accent is Me. Presto! Easy to identify.
Some people fly in the arena while logged into the lobby. This provides a strange situation some times, because they may be red and you may be blue. They start blabbing about their missions, where they are gonna fly, what alt. They might as well come and paint their own kill markers on your plane for you. Flip side is they can hear you too.
Example: The =RT= guys were flying Tempests while on the lobby channel of TeamSpeak. I hit a Tempest and knocked out his controls. I heard him say that, and that he thought it was Hedu (am I the only all-bright red 190 in the arena?). I came around to finish him off, and he said "cmon hedu, gimme a break", so I did. I peeled off and let him go. Technically I got him, and he was gonna have a tough time coasting back to base. But he was on the same channel, and raised me on the radio. So, cool, doesn't hurt to let him go, I did my job.
It can happen to you.
Teamspeak also makes flying with wingmen and flying formation alot easier. I have seem escort with heavy bombers totally react wrongly to what the attackers AND his bombers are doing, solely to the reason of no communication. The IL-2 radio buffer is a peice of crap and totally inadequate for the job it is supposed to do.
One things I hope to see more of with the increasing use of Teamspeak is the calling of 6. In Warbirds, we could click our mouse pointer on a friendly and the radio would call 6 for them with radio and sound. You can't do that with IL-2, but Teamspeak can help that. You just have to have it to make it work.

Catching Flak....

2008-04-04T17:57:00.001-07:00

One easy way to make enemies on your own side is to kill-steal. It comes in many flavors, and alot of times people don't reckognize it, or they don't know that they themselves are doing it. It can happen when a Zoom and Boom (ZnB) drops from alt to shoot someone in a low alt dogfight. It can happen when many planes are chasing a single enemy. It can happen when a low alt buff comes over a base, and the "train" jumps on it. The art of NOT kill-stealing, is to see when you are putting yourself into that very situation. If you can reckognize the situation before it is created, you can stay away from it. True, it verily sucks to NOT go after a target, but it shows your maturity and savvy.
Flying at a higher altitude, or what we call "flying two mistakes higher than everyone" gives you a better over all picture, let alone giving you the alt to make two mistakes and still recover. Seeing a low con, observing if anyone is chasing said con. Will you get there before someone else will? Is the target on fire? If yes, then ignore it, it's not yours to kill. But lets stop there for a moment. The rule is "if the plane is on fire, you cannot shoot at it". Reason is that it is already "killed" by someone else. But what about multiengine planes? Is it ok then? Everyone has heard the fallacy that the P-38 dual engines gave it more chance to survive (it didn't), and if we believe that (which we shouldn't) then it goes to reason that with one engine it is still a threat. Or is it really a treat?
A B-24 is on fire in an engine, but just a single engine. Fair game? I think so, but does the admin? Who knows, cause ArticViper is drunk at the time. Me, I shoot at it. If it really isn't missing substantial controls, to me its a threat. Now if I see missing tail parts, or ailerons, I am not that greedy. I also kinda watch the radio buffer to see if the intended target as lost controls due to someone's attack. I will usually not shoot if this is the case. I know I have nailed a b-29's controls, peeled off the attack, just to watch a score whore dive in to take it. Que sara sara.
Now the trade off here is if the Admin, or "convicted child molester" (just kidding) as I like to call them on Teamspeak when no one but my brother is on, does he think you have been a little greedy. Usually, after a couple of shots of tequila, they don't know a Yak from Yakoff Smirnoff, but they generally will ask you about it before you are kicked. Tell them the truth, and if that doesn't work, kiss ass. If you WERE a dick (heaven forbid) and deserve the kick, you will generally be banned for just a day, or until a Nazi Torture Doctor (admin) gets off of work release and tells his 11 years old to "go fix that computer doohicky", and makes sure the porn is safely hidden, later to be found is some fabulous "Gary Gitter" screw up.
You can go on and on about kill stealing, and you can have the 12 year old mentality were you need to feed your ego. Or you can have a reward like I once had at one of our Warbirds conventions. I guy came up to me because he reckognized my call sign. He said that I had covered his wing while he went after a kill. I called his 6 for him, and he got the kill and got away, but remembered me covering and not trying to shoulder shoot. That made me feel good he knew the call sign for something good I did. And I could bet that if he saw me in trouble, saw the callsign, he would help me out, and I may not even know about it. Remember that next time you land after a 3 kill mission. You probably got help and lived, and never even knew it.

Now, the AAA Arena...

2008-04-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, I love the AAA arena (forum is here). This is the original Mod enabled arena. There are others, but this one is the one that deserves your attention and trials.

I will be very honest about my take on this arena. There are things I love and things I don't. First, what joining the arena is like.

Standard boilerplates when joining. No killstealing, no shouldershooting, vulch only with bombs and rockets or strafing in appropo ground attack planes ( find list here). See the maps, pick a side, and pick a plane. This is where things will be a little different. Modded planes will now appear next to the "regular" planes in your "arming" screen. Certain planes for certain maps, not every plane in every map. Balance is taken into consideration. Choose a plane, a load out, hit fly. Been there, done that? Well, check the tactical map before you join the fight, because there are goals to reach. Sink ships, destroy tanks or just shoot down planes, you have choices. I once flew a Stuka across a whole map just to find the tanks and kill them. Its there for mud movers as it is for dogfighters.

Because of the bevy of planes, you are gonna find a couple of different styles. Turn and burn and Boom and Zoom are always there, but you also find low level Doolittle-like bombing runs, heavy bombers at both high and low alts, and my personally hated form, ack-starring. I am a Boom and Zoom man, I fly the 190 only. There is plenty for any fan of a certain technique to have fun and use tactics. No matter what your poison, don't steal kills or shoot at already burning planes. The admins are there and they will warn you. Keep it up and you will get banned. And no one likes that. Haven't ever seen a pilot that got banned that hasn't begged to get back in.

What mods get you, what mods don't get you...

2008-04-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

Mods get you options. Planes that were before unflyable are now flyable. Gunner positions that weren't usable are now usable. Maps are made with details to realsim, especially by tater. Check out the maps in works at AGW forum at http://agw.bombs-away.net/showthread.php?t=70472 for some amazing historical maps. One of the things you DON'T get are changes in flight models. I think the idea that fms are changed is what keeps many from trying mods. They have to realize that their little Yak is gonna perform the same in the AAA arena as it will anywhere else. The "new" planes, actually existing planes that have been given cockpits and gunner/bomber station, use the existing flight models that are already in the game. This beefs up the flyable planes. This adds about 55 more to fly, including great ones like the B-29 or the Catalina.
Amazingly, the modders also created an option for yu, to fly IL-2 without your installed mods, if you so choose. They have program that lets you pick between modded and not modded, and also between 4.08 and 4.09beta. Mods are easilt downloaded at the AAA forum site, seen in my links.

The First and the, well, the first.....

2008-04-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

First post of my il-2 Blog, which will primarialy focus on the All Aircraft Arcade forums, arena and community. The whole Modded IL-2 expereince is just a total improvement. A lot of people who fly Il-2 don't know enough about it, nor do they think they can install it without ruining their install. I am here for those people, to help them get familiar with the process, the community, and the people behind the mods. I will also rant about stuff going on in the arena, as I will with IL-2 in general. I have 20 years PC flight simming, and some might know me best from my days in Warbirds, and am an everyday member of the AGW Warbirds Off-Topic forum. I frequent many airshows and Flight Museums, living an hour away from the Museum of Flight in Seattle.
I am in the AAA arena frequently, flying only Luftwaffe planes. The 109 used to be my ride, but with the removal of the 109K from some of the maps, I have had the transition made of the 190 series, A-6 through A-9. I'm the all red 190, usually. My brother flies under the callsign "snitchy", usually a N1k2. We both use teamspeak.