Battle of Britian Simulators for 75th anniversary

[sixstrings 111]

Looking to reinstall CoD as i hear there are improvements/patches being made for it. Have CFS3-BoB installed with updates not made publicly available yet. Find it totally immersive with excellent ai's ,missions/campaigns, Flight Modelling ,graphics,fps and much more. It will be interesting to see which simulator will come out on top.Heck,i'll probably want to keep both !! What are some good sites to visit for CoD patches / mods ? I also have Il-2 '46 patched to 4.13 along with several installs of CFS3 and more. Looking forward to give CoD  another chance! Any help with links would be very helpful, Thanks....

[yubba 70]

That would be SAS or Missions 4 Today,,, I'm a IL-2 junkie I fly HSFX  online,,,seen SAS was doing a vietnam mod,, but I wasn't ready to down load 7 gigs,,easier to put up sfp-1 and wings over Vietnam I'm working on the bombers here got the B-52 about dialed in on radar bombing,,I got some pics up in the gallery so how well does that B-24 fly in 4.13 I got that and the B-17s in HSFX plus the B-26

[+Stary 2,427]

didn't he asked about CoD as in Cliffs of Dover? SAS is rather Il2-centric

 

Team Fusion patches are a must I think! Also yeah I know that CFS3 BoB anniversary mod is getting some sweet updates too

[yubba 70]

last I knew Cod was based on IL-2 Sas and Mission 4 today cover those mods but not many fly it ,,certainly not in the relm of folks I fly with.

[sixstrings 111]

Just played a few quick missions on Il-2 '46 4.13 and seems to be stable. Will explore more later as CFS3 BoB and FS-WWI are taking most of my free time right now.

[sixstrings 111]

After researching i found that Battle of Britain II WoV is another one to get too. Seems good with updates available . Interested in all things BoB. Also have Just Flight's  BoB addon for CFS3 that is no longer available and love it.

[33LIMA 972]

Hopefully you have also found this, essential to get the best from BoB2/WoV:

 

http://www.a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=51298

 

Despite also being something of a nut for 'The Battle' I have not so far really warmed to BoB, now BoB2. Despite now having the ability to fly something resembling a conventional virtual pilot, historical squadron-based career, the 'sim within a wargame' aspect never really caught my imagination. And the graphics, though better now, still look a bit primitive and/or washed out, compared even to Il 2 '46 with its still rather beautiful lighting effects. And the rather un-natural formation-keeping still jars a bit. Still, BoB2 looks good enough and the air-to-air AI feels incredibly human. And the breadth and depth of its coverage of the Battle beats everything else into a pretty distant second place.

 

 

 

 

 

[sixstrings 111]

Awesome 33Lima !! The graphics look amazing . Do the German aircraft have correct "markings" on the updated version of CLoD ?  Have the whole update from Team Fusion . Is that all i need ? Do i need any 1C factory updates before i install the TF's mods ? Thanks for any help .         Regards,Scott               p.s. been in the hospital for quite a long time...just got out a short while ago and just now being able to function .

[bruceD 1]

This looks good,and I have it installed now, just updated video card to a 1050TI 4Gb with my CORE I5 2500K 3.3G 6M with Win7 64 bit. I wonder If it would run Ok ? Right now in large formations I still notice a few stutters, but not too bad.

[33LIMA 972]

An old thread now but for anyone dropping by I just want to update my earlier lukewarm comments. Now that I have a system that can play BoB2 + BDG patch 2.13 acceptably at or near near max settings, and the patience to try the wargame side (if only so far as to generate dynamic missions I can choose to fly) I'm a true BoB2 believer, fickle or not. The scope of the air action dwarfs CloD and WoTR and is the only one I've seen that recreates this acceptably (not even modded EAW was close), the depth and accuracy with which history is recreated is unlikely ever to be equalled let alone exceeded (both as regards aircraft markings and ground object/terrain details); the amount of content (flyables and missions) is very high; and the air combat AI is superb.

 

And with autogen trees enabled and other settings higher including terrain tile shimmer fixed, the landscapes look a lot better than in the screenies in my original post.

[Sky High 166]

Good thread this, even if I'm a little late to the party.

Lima makes a great case for BoB2 and demonstrates why it deserves its reputation as by far the most accurate and comprehensive simulator of the Battle of Britain.

I simply offer my case for European Air War as a credible contender for the silver medal:

 

 

[33LIMA 972]

What mods (terrain expecially) and EAW version are you using, Sky High? If my EAW install looked like that I'd probably play it more than occasionally.

As far as I'm concerned, EAW, like most of Microprose's other late 1990s combat sims like M1 Tank Platoon II, B17 II and of course European Air War itself, are still shining examples of how these things should be made, and the yardstick against which they should be judged. Sadly the visuals and some under the hood detail has been improved but few subsequent ones come even close to the depth and breadth of Microprose's classics.

I took the plunge and got Cliffs of Dover Blitz Edition last night - no interest in multi-player so wouldn't have bothered except it was on sale cheap on eBay. So I thought I may as well have it for the odd flight or combat. Have had a bit of a struggle getting things set up, even the Joystick needed every axis set individually. Pics below are from my first real flight, a cross-country job in one of the minor Hurricane variants you can pick, in this case with the DH two-speed prop, smaller-diameter spinner Hurricane model (pointy unlike the Spit [bulbous] or Hurri [longer, bullet-shaped] constant-speed Rotol, both variants of which Hurricanes had, as well as either Spit or Hurri DH jobs).

First impressions include:

- many sims have issues with object draw in but unless there's a setting I've so far missed, CloD is one of the worst offenders I've seen, with piers, jetties, hangars etc popping suddenly into view when far too close;

- my Hurricane is excessively weathered, looking like somebody started and then gave up a half-hearted effort to sand it back to a natural metal finish, and the camouflage is a bit too shiny on metal panels, more like a Luftwaffe one than RAF;

- RAF squadron codes look to be one size fits all, in a rather too rounded font, and planes may lack the prominent serial numbers;

- water, cloud and lighting effects are very good and give a realistic impression, including of the lie of the land at lower altitudes (though I do think the terrain hues look a bit dark or strong);

- cockpits are very nice;

- there are no hedgerows in southern England apparently, just 'tree-rows', and the trees are evidently a special, salt-water-resistant sort, as they run right up to the sea and in some cases, thrive at the foot of limestone sea cliffs;

- the land-sea transitions in urban areas are poor, with no seafronts; houses and streets run randomly up to and sometimes on to beaches;

- the empty, open-door hangars look like they are paper-thin despite their substantial size and height; 

- on autopilot, reminiscent of Il-2, the AI seem to turn on rudder only, and after landing, keep the stick pulled back like their lives depended on it, even after stopping and switching off.

How it flies and fights, and what sort of air-to-air AI and SP missions or campaign it has, I'll find out for myself soon enough.

[Sky High 166]

CLOD does not have good combat AI and the comms system appears not to be working. That's my impression, having bought it for a tenner some years back. 

My version of EAW is run at 1920x1080 resolution through DGVoodoo (via the D3D setting gives Horizon Fog for nVidia cards in Win 7), using Mr Jelly and friends' EAW Version 1.60 (a complete install-no game version required). The terrain is Saggin B's 512x512 HR Autumn terrain, the sky is Keibin's version 4, both of which I added myself and do not come with the 1.6 package (mods are available from SimHQ Tally Ho and MarkEAW's EAW helpsite). I run the game at 4x MSAA and 4x Sparse Grid Supersampling, in my GTX 660ti, which greatly eliminates terrain shimmering (I also have superimposed a third-party 'farm' mod on the terrain which removes the shimmering stock terrain fence). All in-game graphics settings are maxed out. There are three Saggin B HR terrains which can be installed to work seasonally. The JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler is very useful for adding things. I have also added various sets of speech files which I can enable via the JSGME, as the mood takes me. 

TrackIR, utilising mouse-emulation works quite well, even though a TrackClip (I use the Delan Clip) is preferable to the old 'dot' method.

With 1.60, one can fly in the Western ETO, the desert, Malta, Iraq, the Spanish Civil War (with Spanish speech!), Russia and the Pacific. There are many appropriate speech files in the game, with the possibility of downloading Russian, Italian, French and Finnish speech packs. I note that, like myself, you prefer off-line, but multi-player is still an option. 

Since these fellows got the game code, the AI and flight models have been honed considerably. It seems to fly very well, although I speak from a position of complete ignorance, really. I crash, bail out and get shot down a lot, but the game is not impossibly difficult, by any means and there is, as you probably remember, a broad choice of difficulty settings to suit all tastes (I know you'll be aiming for the harder ones).

I don't like the gunsights in 1.60,  so I made a Historic Gunsights mod and I've uploaded it here.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Sky High

[33LIMA 972]

Many thanks for all the tips, Sky High, time to grab some mods and dust off EAW!

SGSS seems to be a good shimmer-killer; I am using it in BoB2 and with MSTS content in Open Rails and it certainly sharpens up that which was not previously sharp.

I could not resist a bit more dabbling in CloD-B last night, playing some of the included missions. Despite being under min spec as regards GPU RAM, it runs very smoothly so far, even pushing the slider up so 6 of us ended up trying to stop 24 Stukas from bombing Hawkindge (they spell it with the 'd', so no surprises they didn't get Lympne quite right either). The bad news is that having failed to stop many of them...

...we were treated to the spectacle of twenty-plus dive bombers level bombing their target. And yes I hadn't discovered that Alt+L turned on the reflector sight when I took that pic.

Maybe because the missions are scripted, there are transmissions from the controller, telling you where the Bandits are, plus a certain amount of R/T chatter.

You'll know all this already, but perhaps because the radio commands are there but broken, combat missions (which seem to be air starts) often seem to begin with you hearing or seeing yourself, the leader, giving attack orders, then off everybody goes, reforming automatically at some later point. This is seen below; the last line of 'my' orders is still visible as my flight of 6 Spits (the max) wades into 9 Heinkels (also the max available for this mission, a daylight defence of London - though I was able to replace all 24 Stukas attacking 'Hawkindge' with Dorniers).

I was able to bunt after the straggling Heinkel streaming white vapour in the pic below, without the motor missing a beat that I noticed. So the effect of negative G on Merlin carburettors of the period is not modelled, it seems.

This pic from a convoy patrol illustrates another research gaffe. I thought absolutely everyone within the English-speaking world and many without knew that the chap in charge of a fighter formation was called a Leader not a Commander, but it seems that 1C didn't, and didn't bother checking with anyone who did. At least, unlike the Hurris, the Spits aren't excessively weathered, though if I was painting a model, I would prefer it ended up looking like the ones in BoB2, as regards representation of the camouflage colours and level of shine.

The inability of the latest version to accept accurate German national markings is a pain. In these one-size-fits-as-many-as-possible days, we seem to be going back to the 1960s, when FROG was the only company whose models often had swastikas and you had to buy the Almark or Escii ones separately for your Airfix and Revell kits, and exotics like the Lindberg He100 and Me163.

And after we chased these Ju88s back from Manston...

... it was odd to see one the survivors half-looping like an oversized Pitts special when it reached France. Maybe this is what the CloD-B AI gets up to, when the mission script runs out of more sensible things for them to do. Or more charitably, perhaps it was the Ju88 I attacked earlier, whose crew ditched the rear half of the canopy and bailed out, flying on for a bit before going out of control. Enemy air gunners don't now appear to be the snipers of some reports, which is something. If the AI is as poor as they say (RoF's wasn't much admired but I could live with it) and the radio commands are U/S, then those and its very small scale will be its main major weaknesses as a single player BoB air combat sim. So my gold still goes to BoB2. EAW I might draw with IL2 '46 (with suitable campaigns like Spitfire Scramble) for the silver, with EAW well ahead in scope for the BoB but well behind with graphics, plus of course IL2 '46 modded has a scope beyond the Battle pretty well as wide as modded EAW.

[33LIMA 972]

PS we needs must mention Wings over the Reich as a contender here. But haven't got it so can't say much other than what I've seen and read from those who have. German raids seem wildly small, the bomber formations are way too wide and seem readily to break up, all of  which is really bad for the BoB and disastrous if carried forward into US daylight raids. There seems to be no Controller, save what he tells you before you scramble rather than letting you get off then telling you when you're in the air. R/T traffic is better than CFS3 but a bit twee at times. Specs are high, possibly as resources are wasted (IMHO) running flights the player will never see if he sticks to his mission - apart very largely from weather, channel or photo recce flights, the Luftwaffe activity should be simulated as consisting of large, discrete raids not separate much smaller formations, which the player is scrambled against if in his Sector, or knows little or nothing about if they're not. Multi-skin is only a little multi. May still be some irritating anachronisms or Americanisms like 'intel' (yuk). The 109s don't have operating slats. Bailouts are not very well done. The in flight map is not as bad as CFS3 but still not good (no Solent, last time I saw). And the port wing Hurricane camo pattern is missing some prominent Dark Earth, a very basic research gaffe! Playable planeset is very small but a Spit is planned along with the Battle of France. The air combat AI is reportedly good, tho AI-led flights seem as in WoFF to spend a bit long after a scramble pottering about near the deck. You can play a proper squadron campaign, picking any Hurricane squadron or 109 gruppe. Currently seems good value for a full-feature sim, if you can forgive the small, wide bomber formations and the apparent lack of ground controllers, which I regret to say I can't. Call me inconsistent but CloD-B's sins I forgave, though only as it was going for £8.99 :)

Would be good if someone who has WotR would do a mini-review or maybe a decent-length, imagination-free screenie-based mission report or two over here, with particular reference to things like formation size that other reports seem a bit vague about.

[Sky High 166]

Thanks for another comprehensive, and accurate, pair of reviews. The CloD and WotR people have a lot of work to do before they can approach the quality of what are three venerable simulations. At least there are standards that have been set. It is great to have the choice of them all. In fairness, WotR is also venerable, but unlike the other three mentioned, it is very technology-demanding. Although I thought it reasonably-priced, I didn't go for it for this reason but went back to EAW, instead and I've never stopped messing about with BoBII. I think it very unlikely that the latter will ever be equalled as a simulation of the Battle of Britain.

[33LIMA 972]

Agreed, BoB and BoB2 are in the 'When comes such another?' category.

Having said that and early days yet, but so far I'm having a decent time playing the CloD Blitz (RAF Hurricane) campaign. As those who've tried it will know by now, it's storyline-based and presumably scripted. So far I've played the fist two missions, a scramble against a low-level Do17 raid on your airfield (Tangmere) and another to meet a Stuka raid on a Channel convoy.

The storyline I find reasonably well written, apart from a lot of missing apostrophes and the working (or middle) class heroes versus the toffs aspect, set as the campaign is in a fictitious 'fat cats' squadron, fictitious code FC, perhaps intended to resemble 501 ('the millionaire's) Squadron - and so hardly representative of the RAF.

This is me pulling away after damaging a Dornier - the one above the others trailing faint grey smoke - from the second, larger wave. It took me a few replays before I realised I was nosing over on takeoff because I had the wheel brakes fully on! There's plenty of R/T chatter, but I wish I could replace 'Commander' with 'Leader' and as in IL-2, either supress the text or limit it to a single line at a time.

In the Stuka intercept, some of the R/T chatter is my section leader proffering advice to my character - a new arrival, looked down on by the toffs but befriended by the aforementioned section leader. Which would hardly happen on an operational sortie.

But the backstory is I think commendable, reminiscent of the better efforts in scripted campaigns for Il2 '46, and so far it's pulling me in.

This is about as good as my formation-keeping got in mission 2 - the boss is leading six of us with me as Red 2 in FC-A on his left....

As I think in WotR, we left climbing for height a bit late, especially as our airfield is right on the coast.

Sadly I got no pics of my attacks on the formation of Stukas, which was large enough not to look...well, small. We got them before they dived onto the convoy, but could not prevent it being attacked - you can see one of the beggars diving steeply, but not very accurately, on a tanker in the next pic.

I could not find the others after the air fight. Many pilots describe how the sky could suddenly empty of planes, but they seem particularly good at disappearing from view in CloD - unlike say BoB2 when you can often see specks at some distance, at least against sky or clouds.

 Anyhow, this is me heading home afterwards, on my own. I got told off by my leader a few times for this, much as happens in BoB2. The transmissions are a bit low volume but mostly seem well done; a fair bit of time, effort and creativity has gone into them and I appreciate that. The radio menu seems to work to the extent I can get from Control bearings to my home base, although I'm not sure about anything else.

And this is me back at Tangmere. Landings I find easier than in BoB2, although the quirky key binding screen is a hindrance, likewise the fact that you seem to have to tap keys for flaps and undercart twice (once is a 'neutral' setting, whatever use that is).

The Junkers were unescorted and I was credited with no less than three of them. They mostly stick closely together but I have seen stragglers jink. I think only your own successes are reported. Each subsequent mission briefing seems to pick up the story neatly where the last one left off.

If in movie terms, BoB2 is the Battle of Britain, you might say that the CloD SP RAF campaign is more like Dark Blue World  - or perhaps the more recent Hurricane, though the CloD scriptwriting is much better and the action, so very much better again than in the latter film with its awful air combat CGI. Microprose's B17-II managed to produce an immersive Flying Fortress simulation despite ridiculously small bomber formations, because it focussed so intensely on what was going on inside and immediately around your own B17. Perhaps I will find that for me, the CloD RAF campaign manages something similar, if the reportedly poor AI doesn't kill the experience when we run into the 109s, and the more typical bomber raids we will likely meet later are not too small. I have also downloaded this quaintly-named campaign and will give it a go too.