Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[BuriBuriZaemon]

Yeah sorry for getting mixed up... So if you had to choose between '46 and Cliff of Dover, you'd go for '46?

The multiplayer seems interesting but unfortunately I don't have joystick.

[Shadowlord]

I actually bought IL-2: 1946 during a steam sale (for fairly cheap), only to discover that it has no effective way to fly planes using the mouse. I was rather expecting the mouse to be usable in the same manner as in Freelancer or X3:TC. Instead it was just unplayable. 

[Sensei]

Yeah, back in those days, you weren't a PC gamer if you didn't have a joystick.

[BuriBuriZaemon]

I used to have a joystick for playing great games like Independent Wars 2, Freelancer, and X2: The Threat. Then the genre just faded away...

[sluissa]

I still have a couple of joysticks laying around, but they've mostly been replaced by a xbox 360 wired controller. I've found it's useful for just about any flight sim excluding helicopters (and even there is can at least do a passable job if you can map things right.) Almost all my FSX flying is done on it now. A good portion of my space simming, except what's easier to do with the keyboard/mouse(X3:TC), and the few combat sims I've played in the last 2 or 3 years have all been on the 360 controller. Last I tried to play IL-2 though, it was still with my old saitek joystick, not sure if it would map well to a controller. It really does have a ton of buttons it needs.

[Shadowlord]

None of the joysticks I had can plug into modern computers.

Or had more than one button. Well, maybe two, but they did the same thing. </Commodore64> :V

I had a joystick which plugged into the joystick port of a PC too, but naturally, they stopped including that port on motherboards shortly after I acquired it. Wasn't a good joystick anyways. I couldn't see the point of buying an expensive one when mice were so much more precise.

[Goron]

I've flown IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 on/off for around 6 years now, and I think you'd mostly wrong if you were talking about proper flight simulators. ...snip...

Thank you for that post... I actually experienced something of a physical pain when I read some of those posts you responded to...

[Spaghetti7]

I've flown IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 on/off for around 6 years now, and I think you'd mostly wrong if you were talking about proper flight simulators. ...snip...

Thank you for that post... I actually experienced something of a physical pain when I read some of those posts you responded to...

I'm with you two on this one.
Also, back a la topic, this looks interesting. In parts in looks arcade-y, in others very realistic. And it has great damage modelling. Overall, looks interesting enough to be worth a shot for F2P.

[Anvilfolk]

To quickly answer the questions before we go back on topic:
- You can't really do flight sims without a proper joystick. Luckily, they can be quite cheap. Try to get something with a twist-axis (for rudder). I've also heard gamepads work OKish, so I'd try it with that if you own one.
- I'd go for '46, since there's ALWAYS a server you can join with people. Also, Cliffs of Dover may not run on your computer and is a lot more hardcore realism-wise. Beware that there's some intensive patching required and the graphics ARE old

We should do an IL-2 topic around here. There's more people playing it than it seems like!

They did mention some pretty interesting damage modelling. I really hope it's not just the graphics that look cool, but that it really affects flights I really am rather sad about the 32 player limit though. Doesn't make much sense as far as MMO's go... perhaps they'll mod it or up it? I mean, what about formation flying with tons of planes? Love me some formation flying

[BuriBuriZaemon]

Duuvian was kind enough to send me a message about a good budget joystick and gave me permission to post it here. I think his tips will be useful to many.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hello. I saw you were thinking about trying a flight sim game with keyboard and mouse. I understand money issues being a poor person myself but flying with keyboard and mouse is just horrible.

The main reason is because with keyboards you are have to choose between all or nothing, or graduated steps. By this I mean either full turn, or you push it 1-2-3-4 times for 25% movement and then push another button to go 25% back the other way in steps.

With mouse, you will be missing one of the 3 flight controls. With airplanes you use the rudder for twisting the nose right and left. the airlereons to tilt the wings left and right, and elevator to pitch the nose up and down. This means at least one will have to be keyboard controlled and you run into the above paragraph.

This said, you will really want to consider a joystick to be able to enjoy a flight sim. If you woud like my personal recommendation for an affordable and well constructed joystick, it would be the Saitek Av8r. I have one and I've been quite pleased with it. I've had it for years and in that time it's both been mostly inactive (and gathered dust) and hasn't required any maintenance when I want to whip out my joystick. The only maintenance I've had to perform was taking it apart due to the grease inside becoming spoiled/wore off from use.

One thing to note is that it has rudder function by having the stick being twistable. This is most excellent and saves money due to not requiring rudder petals (or keyboard use otherwise)

I recommend it mostly due to cost however. I think it was 20-40$ when I bought mine as I doubt I would spend more than that and it has served me well for years and was well worth it to me.

If you can find a newer model for a good price get that instead though; it looks like it's not manufactured anymore. Just make sure it has a twisty stick or whatever the term might be as that will save you money or frustration. A good idea is to get one with as many buttons as possible. Av8r for example has the switches at the bottom which all function as seperate buttons in the up/down positions. It's useful in most games; such as spaceship and flight sims as generally even the simple ones will have viewmode switching buttons you could map.

Also it would probably work well in a tank sim due to to twisty stick(I think you mentioned one of those back when you used to play Illyriad) but maybe not as well as a mouse if you are already used to that.

Here is a link I found real fast after a google search: http://www.amazon.com/Saitek-Aviator-Throttle-Joystick-PS33/dp/B000I62PEK

I really am rather sad about the 32 player limit though. Doesn't make much sense as far as MMO's go... perhaps they'll mod it or up it? I mean, what about formation flying with tons of planes? Love me some formation flying

I agree 32 players is not epic enough. I guess the problem is when you have too many players, matchmaking becomes difficult.

Also AnvilMate, you make me tempted to buy IL-2 '46... It's only $10... Must resist because I have spent too much on entertainment...

[Anvilfolk]

Awww, Duuvian should've just posted it here. It's definitely relevant

Also, BuriBuri! Let me try to dissuade you from buying IL-2 with facts!

IL-2 can be one of the the most boring games in the world. It took me several years to really get into it, and that was because I found out WW2 aviation was a passion of mine (through IL2). If you play it "for realsies", your sorties can be as follows:
0m: start engines
1m: start taxying
5m: wheels up, climbing
20m: over target area, still climbing
30m: spot some bogies in the distance, promptly lose them
35m: same
40m: spot some more, get into position, up-sun
42m: dive on them
43m: realise they are friendlies, break
50m: see 30m
...
1h: head back to base
1h15m: descent
1h20m: on final
1h25m: wheels down, chocks in, engine off, live to fight another day

Other than that, your first few months (or years, if you're anything like me) will be either on boring offline missions, of which 70% are spent on time-skip (i.e. looking at a black screen waiting to get to target) or getting shot down over and over again by much better players online. The less realistic servers offer something like "airquake" and you should be able to get some kills at some point

Playing online is one of the most rewarding experiences though, once you stop sucking completely. Especially if you find people on TS and manage to fly together, it's absolutely amazing. When my squad was active, it was laughing from start to finish, and provided some amazing moments, with formations, crashes, explossions, bombers dogfighting fighters and succeeding (rarely!), but it was just amazing.

But you have to like WW2 aviation to like the experience. More often than not there's not tons happening (unless you "airquake", and even then!)

[Matz05]

Interesting how things changed over time.
Air combat went from "fly up close and fill the other guy full of enough little SMG bullets without stalling to force him down" to "streak around at high speeds and try to land a few cannon shells" to "hear a report of an enemy plane, shriek over there at Mach 3, see a blip, fire missiles, see tiny scary blips, mash the countermeasure buttons and try to get out of the way, narrowly escape hypersonic death, go home, file a report about the enemy plane you fought but never saw".

[BuriBuriZaemon]

Snip.

Actually I may enjoy those boring moments. I am a modern history buff but I am still familiarising myself with its aviation bit. The planes of WW1 and WW2 have these nostalgic images that no modern plane has.

Probably it's because back in those days, pilots had to get close and personal to score a kill whereas today it's done by press of buttons.

[Anvilfolk]

Well, IL-2 '46 has no DRM, so you can "demo" it to figure out whether you'll like it. ROF is F2P, as you noticed, so there's also that. I assume you are familiar with the DCS series - if you're into more modern stuff you will love that. DCS A-10C runs slowly on my machine, but I had a ton of fun getting to know all the weapons systems. I'm waiting until I can get a new rig to perhaps go into multiplayer!

Again though, these things take forever to get even moderately decent at. If you hang in there, it's the best thing in the world!

Which is sort of why I am excited for Wings of Prey and Gaijin's offerings. Not for myself, but most people need some more "instant" gratification. At least it gets more people interested in the genre!

It's also funny that you mention close and personal because most pilot accounts that I've read mention that they rarely felt they were fighting other men, mostly just the machines. Situations where they managed to see the enemy pilot were few, but always left very strong feelings and memories.

[BuriBuriZaemon]

I don't like flight sims for modern day aircraft to be honest. I like WW1 and WW2 planes better. And yes, I sure hope War Thunder will bring people like me into the genre.

Anyway, about joystick, I live in Australia and the one Duuvian recommended (Saitek Aviator) is not available in Australia for reasonable prices. I only found them being sold at $80-$100... Dang Aussie retailers. And I can't buy from Saitek official store because they do not ship to Australia. Postage and shipping from international sellers cost too much due to the weight of the items.

All I could find available here are

Logitech Extreme 3D Pro $60

Logitech Attack 3 $40

How do they compare to Saitek Aviator and Cyborg?