I flew 4.50 for quite a while last night. I don't remember saying, "Wow" as I've flown through the clouds, before. But, wow, they are beautiful. There is more of a feeling of actually being in the air, actually flying. I flew all over England, not even fighting, just flying. Spent some time in the Tiger Moth just looking at the scenery. I had never even noticed that the windmill blades actually turn.
Took the Blenhiem on a cross country. Got lost. Decided that, maybe, it was finally time to learn how to use that British style compass. Yeah, I've had Cliffs of Dover since the day it came out....and I only just now learned how to use the compass. Something about how nice the flying feels made me finally decide to do it. Something. It's subtle but it's there.
The most obvious change is the Beaufighter, of course. Flew it, haven't fought in it. Really nicely done.
I didn't notice the issue with gun sounds and flames that some people were complaining about. Seem just fine to me. I got into a short fight with some Italian fighters. My AI squadron mates got every one before I could get any in my sights. I then went back and landed at Manston, I think, and a couple of AI landed, also. Don't think I've seen that happen before. A couple also crashed. But there were no changes done to the AI, were there?
It's a good sim. I've always liked it. I'm glad to see it's being kept up to date by the TF crew. I think it's a worthy stablemate to the new titles in the Il-2 series.

True, I made another visit to the campaign flying for RAF Fighter Command.
Since I flew this before any TF patch I knew what missions I would face and have just now flown the 2 first ones.

As you say, nothing dramatic but I think I see the bombers further out and the soft but powerful Merlin engine sound of the Hurricane makes it a pleasant experience.

While I am very aware that I'm a second grade e-pilot, at best , I still think I just now experienced what TFS meant when they said the gunners are improved, lost my engine both missions.

Thank God the Hawker Hurricane factory plants are working at full capacity.

The P-8 compass work in "British way" ("wrong way"), but is easy get used after understand how work - tutorial:

http://www.aircombatgroup.co.uk/flight_school/general/advanced_nav.php

BTW - Don't help that 3D of CloD P-8 compass is incomplete, miss the important "Lubber line" at 12:00 o'clock for set the course - But TF say that fix this is not important - the new Beaufigher has the same incomplete compass, but fix a plaque for Spit radiator is considered important, despite the radiator lever move in wrong quadrant = this fix worth nothing.



No, no changes was made in AI (promised for 5.0) and what you describe is not new, AI return to base after SP mission objetive is complete (success or fail), the two that crash is due your fault.
You are the flight leader and in Dowding... ops Dr. WHO'leg directives for landing determine that flight leader is the last to land, should land only after tower autorize. The order is 6-5-4-3-2-1 (leader).

When you broken the landing order the remaining AI try keep formation with you and crash. You need deceive then about your intention, when aligned with runway order AI for spread out formation and after for change the formation, meanwhile you land.

I find fly with AI - respecting CLoD "way of being" - more enjoyable than fly with Bo'X AI (the guys there barely are able to keep a V formation).

BTW - Beware that AI gunners now represent a real danger for ones used to "park" in bomber six.

One thing TFS did do a lot of was correcting the direction of the default runways at all of the airfields. The AI uses these to takeoff and land and earlier versions of the game had them set so that the AI flight path ran them into buildings and trees on approach. Just another small, painstaking fix done by TFS. Still no guarantee the AL won't crash on landing, but it should help.

I have never experienced this behavior, possible you were setting their waypoints with errors, maybe

"The order is 6-5-4-3-2-1 (leader)."

DAMN, Sokal! I didn't know that. I feel awful. I've been killing my men!

The bomber gunners are too accurate now.

You can change the skills of ai bombers, make their gunners how you wont it.
They are to high set by default probably at Veteran, in normal campaign, sigle or quick missions, just reduce it to Rokie or Averadge skill but only for gunners as if they are just set to rokie they forghet how to fly or react to stupid, you have costum option in FMB or you can adjust that directly in .mis file.


In FMB you can do that by selecting mission you wont to edit and then selecting flight of bombers you wont to edit.
Then go in Group Properties, and then in Skill clicking on box on right with ... that will open costum skill seting window where you adjust specificly their:
-Basic Flying ( best is to have this on max so they know how to fly, when this is to low they crash a lot )
-Advanced Flying ( for bomber have this at 50-70% so they dont do crazy loops for fighters 90-100 )
-Awaerness ( i have it on max so they have good grasp of whats happening around them, this is how many stuff they can se and react to)
-Aerial gunnery ( this is how accurate they are, not droping bombs, just gunnery so for bombers have it betwen 0-30% depending on bomber and its guns, for fighters i use 70-100%)
-Tactics ( well as it says if its higher they will have more choice of manovers to do in DF, i have it at 70-80 usealy for bombers or max for fighters )
-Vision ( for bomber i have it at 50, for fighters at 70-80, this is how far they can spot you, if its to low for fighters they dont see you coming from 6 )
-Bravery ( when will they bail out, if its to low at first fire of aleron they jump, if its to high they go down fighting untill end, i have it at 70-80%, im not sure from my tests that this has anything to do in when will they abort flight )
-Discipline ( will he stay in formation under attack or try to eveid, i have it max for bombers and 70% for fighters )


in . mis file it looks like this for flights:

i like to use this for bombers:
Skill 1 0.5 1 0.2 0.75 0.5 0.7 1

and this for fighters:
Skill 1 0.79 1 0.74 1 0.75 0.79 0.75

first number is for Basic Flying, secound for AdvancedFlying, and so on until last that is for Dicipline, and they go from 0 is rokie, 1 is ace, 0.3 is averadge and 0.7 is veteran for most, but it depends on airplane types, its like 0-100% where 1 is 100%.

Example from .mis for flight of Stukas:
[BoB_LW_LG1_IV.13]
Flight0 G A T B L E
Flight1 H F D
Class Aircraft.Ju-87B-2
Formation LINEABREAST
CallSign 26
Fuel 70
Weapons 1 1 1 1
Skill 1 0.5 1 0.2 0.75 0.5 0.7 1
Aging0 50
Aging1 62
Aging2 50
Aging4 50
Aging5 62
Aging10 49
Aging11 17
Aging12 62
Serial0 3350
Serial1 2262
Serial2 1150
Serial3 0520
Serial4 0450
Serial5 2062
Serial10 2049
Serial11 2017
Serial12 2062


Single Missions

you can fined in:
...Documents\1C SoftClub\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover\missions\Single

Campaigns, Quick Missions, Training Missions you can fined in:
...Steam\steamapps\common\IL-2 Sturmovik Cliffs of Dover Blitz\parts\bob\mission


In game in Extra is your Full Mission Builder ( FMB ), and he can only read mission files that are in :

...Documents\1C SoftClub\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover\missions

so if you wont to edit Campaign mission with FMB you have to copy them first in that documents so FMB can see them, and then copy them back to steam.. parts when you edit them.

This is how i do stuff in 4.3 to get better expiriance with AI, and as not mutch is changed i expect same will work in 4.5


Regarding crashing AIs on airbases, i found only 3 places where that happends, and reported it to TFS and they are fixing it, AI in this game will land ok if base has good waypoints for taxing, they also fixed AI landing problems with Spit iia, Fw-200, Blenheims in this 4.5 from what i could see.

Also fuel has big impact on how airplanes will land, less fuel you give them its better, last waypoint before landing its good to have 5-10km from base and at 1000m ( as this is alt they usealy use to start landing proces, last airplane in flight lands first) with 250-280kmh.

Hope this helps if you dont wont to wait for next patch and wont to play with ai settings on your own, there is more options for AI its not just one two skills, but it takes time to get it how you wont them to act

Slip, I watched an entire video showing Salmo demonstrating the process of correcting these. It clearly showed how the AI were not able to safely land before the correction, and able to do so afterwards. It had nothing to do with how waypoints were set.
CountZero thanks for the more comprehensive explanation.

Murph yes thats the 2 airbase out of 3 reported in that video, out of how many where that not happends, i reported that 2 bugs you could see in that video.

I tested take off and landings on all bases few months ago, and reported where i saw problems with crashes or bumps on bases. its small number of bases.
Rests were working fine in 4.3, although many have taxing waypoints at to big angles 90+ so airplanes cant turn so they just teleport to next taxingpoint.
Also wind direction in game dictates for AI flight on what runway and direction on base he will land, so thouse crashes in bug report happend only on some wind directions when AI flight is selecting to land on base from direction of hills.

Gunners skill (Person) can be adjusted individually and per plane in the group, in FMB:



REsult in mission code (.mis):

Yes, thanks for pictures Sokol
Game alows users to adjust AI skills in detail, but it takes some time to get used to it.
Would be nice if in game, when player is selecting missions, user is able to select skill or difficulti of missions for Quick, Single or Campaign, until then its how mission maker sets it or how you re-adjust it.

I think you can adjust them, just not "on the fly". You can navigate to any mission in the FMB and adjust the parameters there.

Worst change for immersion is rollback to non-historical markings...

It doesn't bother me anymore.

I concur... although we should have expected that I guess