I got into flight sim games from playing the history channels “Dogfight the game”; which at first was a blast, but it didn’t take long for me to become bored with the same old objective (dogfighting) time after time. I then went researching for a challenging, action filled, realistic flight simulation based game and found IL-2.

During my search I came across many reviews of IL-2 and ¾ of the reviewers just loved the game while ¼ disliked it. Those that gave reasons as to why they disliked it all stated that it took too long to get to the fun. After buying and trying the game I almost gave up, as I too found that for a newbie taking 10-20 minutes to get to the action (often just to be shot down in the first minutes of combat) was not working out. I fully understand that from a historical standpoint this was realistic, but I was looking for fun. I am now under the impression that folks that play IL-2 are mostly of 2 natures; those that play it from the historical perspective and those that only play in the dogfight arenas. I believe that there is a 3rd nature of folks out there; those that are like myself and my buddies that want a variety of coop missions and yet not have to wait an extensive period of time to get to the battle. I believe that a large fraction of those that give up on the game could be retained if they found themselves with an option of playing missions that took but a few minutes to get to the action.

One of the things that I appreciate about this game is the ability to build your own missions; and that is what I have done (thank you Mission Mate and Nut Case for sharing your tools and tutorials). I have made many tens of missions that take 2 minutes or less to get to the action and me and my buddies are now happy as can be with the game. But most folks are not like myself and would just give up and move on rather than put in the effort to master the tools and build their own missions.

I now would like to request some advice/information from those more knowledgeable than myself:
1) What would be the best way to make my missions available to other newbies before we loose them? I have put much time into developing them and making sure they are fun and bug free.
2) What would need to be done in order to modify the game in such a way as to make entrance into a coop game available after it has started up, and also make it so that a player could restart if he was killed? I believe these modifications would draw folks out of the dogfights and into the coops.

Many thanks in advance for any info and suggestions.


===Blindman===

1) You can post missions to a number of sites. I use Mission4Today (see the link below).

2) Support for this game is at an end. The modification you talk about can't be done without the game developer supporting it and they are not supporting modifications any more. Besides, I don't think they would support your idea. Coops are designed so that once you are dead, you are dead. The game developers wanted it that way.

Thank you Zeus-cat, I was already aware of Mission4Today (great site). I had hoped that there might be a more direct way to catch those newcomers that wouldn't put in the effort to go check message boards etc.

I am saddened but not surprised that the establishment would not want to change the coops to allow for rejoining. It does seem like a reasonable request though to make it selectable so that those that want dead to be dead have their way, and those that want to be able to rejoin to have their way as well. I think it a shame that more folks don't take advantage of the coops, and I think this is why (especially with the long time it takes to get to the action in the first place).

Thanks again,
===Blindman===

Blindman, I felt the same way about the long missions when I first got into this. I still cringe about long flight distances just to get to the target and then possibly shot down. However, I do prefer the historical reality that other mission builders try to portray (with long distances) so I tend to use the fast forward (]) key a lot.

I have made many historical missions myself but I've always tried to keep the flight distances as short as possible. Sometimes if the distance is too far then I will snub the historical reality and use an airfield closer to the target or put the planes in "airstart" mode.

I think most people wouldn't mind that. I do it because I understand a lot of people don't have the time nor patience to sit through a long flight. They get discouraged like you said and lose interest. Shorter flight times do make a more enjoyable product.

I've got a pretty short attention span myself so using Autopilot and the time compression feature at 8X gets me where I want to go in most campaigns. Don't fly the stock Pacific campaigns that come with the game...the flight distances are realistic but ultimately boring.

Check my sig for links to the various campaigns I've put together. They are longer than 2 minutes to action but things generally get rolling pretty quickly with autopilot/time compress on. There are other campaigns out there as well at M4T that don't have the insane flight distances.

Anything Eastern Front also tends to be shorter in distance for historical reasons. Hand crafted campaigns are almost always better than a dynamic campaign so you should check into those.

Thank you CzechTexan and VW-IceFire for the info and your ideas. I will be checking out your campaigns soon. At the moment I usually fly with an old buddy (online games keep us in touch) on multi coop where auto-pilot and time alterations are not an option.

Even though I am a history buff, and spend much more time watching the Military channel and the History channels than all other channels combined, I still prefer a short un-historical mission to the history based longer missions. I guess I am more in this for the fun than I am for the historical insight (what a great way though to get that historical insight!).

I am still honing my skill at building missions, and none of them are based in history (except to match which planes and locations go with which countries). So far I have a good number of these missions and have them organized by difficulty. My goal is to be able to offer 10 difficulty levels with 10-20 short missions in each level. So far I am up to level 5, as my skill limits me from going higher at this time. I do intend to one day soon make them available via Mission4Today or some other host-site.

Good hunting to all,
===Blindman===

My campaigns feature distances that are a tradeoff between accuracy and playability. My SBD campaigns are way too short for historical accuracy, but they provide you enough distance to climb to an appropriate altitude.

What I normally do is takeoff, climb to 1,000 feet or so and then hit the autopliot and let the computer fly to the target at 4X or 8X speed. When I get close to the target I switch back to manual control. If I remain undamaged after bombing the target I again let the computer fly back to base at 8X speed. I take over to land. If I'm damaged I fly home at normal speed (or maybe 2X).

when i began playing this game in 2001 i finding a mission boring if i had to fly for like 5 minutes. I was of course younger and thus had less patience but when you play this game alot you get used to flying longer time to reach the target. now i dont mind 20 minutes.
trim you'r plane and enjoy the flight.

Cheers Blindman.

Re. Coops. Part of the APPEAL of co-ops is that you can't rejoin. Why is that a positive? Because players will fly like their life is at stake, 'cause it is! So they encourage more realistic flying habits. Of course it s bummer if you get nailed early, but that's the trade off. Nothing's black and white, right.

Re. flight times, one thing that helps a LOT, is to fly with manual navigation. Can the mini-map and you'll be too busy checking for landmarks and checking your stopwatch to get bored. Truly, I think it's one of the least known immersion enhancers in the game. Of course not many public missions come with suitable nav info in the briefing, but it's something you might like to try in your own missions. Seriously, it's way cool.

Just my 2c, but I understand where you're coming from.

Good luck!