What is the TAW ?
Tactical Air War is a online PvP campaign on IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad platform.
You can choose one side of the conflict:
Red - Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily - Russian Air Forces
Blue - Luftwaffe - German Air Forces
And take part in the conflict as a fighter or bomber pilot.
The goal fo each campaign will be capturing the map, destroying all of the enemy planes or airfields or the resources.
Although the air forces have domination on the battlefield, the land still need to be captured by the ground forces like in real war.
So no matter how many planes you will destroy and how good streak you will have you still gonna loose when you let your enemy wipe out your poor brothers in arms in trenches & tanks.
The idea of TAW was drawn from the ADW, Air Domination War - probably the best & hardest online war in IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 game.
Our goal is to keep the idea of the ADW, implement all the good elements, rules & logic with avoiding bad sides of that project.
What days you want to play the campaign?
Every day is a good day to die - 24/7 from now on.
However originaly ADW had the minimal number ( called quorum ex. 5-5, 10-0) of players on server to activate the parser and count all the actions to avoid situation when small ants are wining the map alone when most of the players sleep well. This vital concept is not implemented for the time being and depends on number of players participating.
What version I need to play ?
At this moment you need to have only standard IL-2:BoS but... If we want to balance the teams and use the limitations we will definitly soon need a BoM and others...
Battle of England, Battle of France, Battle of Afrika and so on! Everything in devs hands!
How I can participate ?
When entering server for the first time mind that choosing red or blue side is going to register you as either VVS or Luftwaffe pilot for the length of the test campaign.
Remember!!!
After that you will be kicked when joining opposite side!
Later in the regular campaign we have in plans to add registration on a website.
What is the difference between TAW and other online campaigns ?
TAW consist of several dogfight type missions (70-90 min.) played one after another like on all dogfight servers but what is so special, here YOUR EVERY ACTION CAN AFFECT THE NEXT MISSION!!!
Generator is counting every ground kill at the end of the mission and CREATES ANOTHER SORTIE WITH CHANGED TACTICAL SITUATION AND FRONT LINE.
It`s the only about being on the top of the stats at the end of the month.
Here you are really sacrificing your virtual life for the right cause and the final victory.
Yeah, stats, what about them?
Every pilot on WW II had his own pilot`s book in which he was logging every sortie he flew, time of the flight, kills and additional notes.
And they were competing as well like we in, video games.
So that`s why we think that statistics are necessary part of the gameplay and they improve atmosphere.
However we want to use statistics also as a tool to persuade some stubborn players to care about their virtual lives so the most important factor for the highest position in the rank will be survivability. We would like to avoid situation when people spending half of their private life in front of the PC playing just badly are always "better" and on the top of the stats than people who fly from time to time but carefully, intelligently and with style.
This gonna be a historical campaign with historical planeset ?
Yes, we would like to create few historical campaigns on available maps.
Now we are on the test stage so so all mods and planes are available and we have only one map, but...
Our main goal is to balance the gameplay and keep the fair & equal conditions for both teams.
We all know how the World War II and their dogfights were looking from the books.
The virtual enviroment have own rights and factors, before you start to judge think a bit.
So about the balance of planeset and limitations...
Just think before you start your critic.
Can we kill most of the senior pilots and tacticans on the red side before the war starts like it has place in history? No.
Can we restrict usage of radio(TS) on the red side? No.
Should we register only one red experienced pilot per every 20 rookies ? No.
Can we decrease the skill of the blue pilots during the campaign to simulate Luftwaffe problems with training young bloods ? No.
So should we decrease the overall number of blue pilots on the server to keep the ratio of forces on the Eastern Front ? No.
So should we arm the red side in 10 x more planes than blue side ? No.
Can we implement the poor quality of the soviet planes or engine problems after few sorties ? No.
Finally, can we change the FM of some planes, which are flying "not so correctly" ? No... No...No...
What we need to do is to try to arm both sides with planes having advantages and for balancing them we will count factors like, top speed, climb rate, turn time, durability, armament, number of bullets, loadout,etc.
So can everyone come, write a post on forum and demand a changes ?
Nope...
We apreciate and respect only logical arguments so if you want to change something be sure we will ask:"Why?"
How much experience you have ?
What you are proposing ?
Show the evidence that those planes are not well balanced.
In the combat simulators and especially on the virtual wars you are usually killed because of the numerous disadvantage, own stupidity, greed, bad decisions, lack of experience, knowledge and lack of cold blood.
From our side we will do everything to keep the balance.
Remember this before trying to blame us for being partial
.
So what I should do when I join the mission?
First of all, check on the map on the server or on the website how the tactical situation looks.
Then choose to defend own targets or attack the enemy.
Even if you came here only for brainless dogfight, check where are the targets because in those places you have bigger chances to meet the enemy and die after 5 minutes of FURBALL defeated by the hordes ( usually 2 planes...) of the enemies.
How to win in the mission and capture the area ?
Terrain can be captured by the striking tank column.
To capture the city or airfield tanks have to reach them and win the battle against defence of the object if such one exist.
More tanks will survive, bigger chance for capturing the terrain and object.
Defence consist of anti tank guns and AAA. More of them will survive, bigger chance they will destroy tank column.
Undamaged defence can usually survive 1-2 attacks of a tank columns, so if you want to capture the area you MUST attack it.
After each mission defender position recives some small supplies.
If the defence is damaged and the tank column is in radius of 15 km from the airfield, it is closed and you can`t take off from there.
Shorter version:
Kill the enemy defence and defend own tanks.
Currently we are working on the supply columns, supplies, depots so there be a reason to make a strategic attacks with bigger bombers.
The AAA is too deadly, I can`t survive even one attack, if you will not change it, I`m not playing anyomore!!!
So you are saying this game is too hard for you???
Then please find server for medium level players.
ADW was a place for the best, we hope to build TAW with the same spirit.
Before you come to forum with similar ask try to speak with old ADW veterans how strong was the AAA in the columns or depots...
It was a wall of bullets, hundreds of them flying directly in to your plane.
Lone attack was a suicide.
But just think...
Did the pilots in WW II were flying alone on missions ( except recon ) ???
Here you need to understand one thing.
This is a not another place for freelancers.
Find the solution, attack in a bigger, organized groups.
There is a lot of things we would like to add and change but even the Rome wasn`t built in one day.
Give us some feedback on forum.
Report the bugs and problems.
