https://store.steampowered.com/app/15320/ This game is almost old as dirt (2006), but is currently on sale for only $2.59. I know we have a crowd that enjoys simulations and this game still offers more content that most modern games out there right now (which is a bit sad when you think about it). Is there any interest in making something out of this? It is worth noting this game is still getting regular patch updates. Last one was May 3 of this year! From the Steam page: "Il-2 1946 includes all of the original IL-2 series content: IL-2 Sturmovik™: Forgotten Battles, Ace Expansion Pack, Pacific Fighters™ and alternate histry campaigns of year 1946. What was years ago began as a one-aircraft study sim is now an astonishing anthology, with a whopping 229 flyable aircraft and over 300 aircraft total! The game has been updated to the latest version 4.12.2. This community made update includes widescreen support with correct FOV, many new planes, maps and scenarios. New Aircraft: 32 new flyable fighters and bombers, and four new AI aircraft! New Maps: Large new historical maps of the Kiev region; a map of Manchuria focusing on a border region between USSR, China and Japanese-occupied Korea; a large bonus Burma map; and an online Khalkin Gol / Nomonhan map. New Campaigns: Nine new campaigns with nearly 200 missions add incredible realism and attention to detail. There are detailed careers for fighter and bomber pilots, for the German, Soviet, and Japanese air forces, offering such varied objectives as flying jet bombers over occupied Europe, to intercepting American B-29 Super fortresses over Iwo Jima and Japanese home islands! Alternate History: Three of the nine campaigns are a departure into alternate history, focusing on hypothetical battles between the Soviet Union and Germany in the year 1946, while WWII still rages on. Nearly 1,000 new Paint schemes: The new planes, as well as many of the other ones in the series, come with a host of historical paint schemes, showing many of the individual aircraft or squadrons that served in WWII." There is also a strong modding community that continues to crank out new content for a game that is over a decade old: http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads I know Aspius has been trying to get a simulator off the ground with our group, but most offerings are way too expensive to justify the investment. Perhaps this is the right baby step to take? What do you guys think?
I of course need to chime in here but first things first. You should correct the name of the thread. The game is good and the current price during the sale is fantastic. If you like flying its hundreds of hours of gameplay for the price of a piece of candy. If people want to play this I'm definitely up for it. Now, Magnus talks about the game having more content then any of the new sims out there and that is true but that doesn't tell the entire story. The planes of the new sims are of much better quality. They look better, fly more accurately and so on. Because of the better quality they require more work and as they spend more time working on one plane they won't be able to do as many. While IL-2 1946 planes where great for their time they don't stack up well against the more modern sims planes. Which is to be expected and it's why you see the much lower price. Now if the price is what is really important then you have other options as well. A game that provides even more content for free is War Thunder but that has it's own issues with things like the grind. Also, I would only recommend to do dogfighting in it. There is also Rise of Flight which is free. The free version doesnt offer that much content but you do get 2 of the best fighters from the period. We actually played alot of this in the past. Of course it all depends on the people who want to play. Right now it's only really flessar and I that play and we do primarily play DCS but that is pretty hardcore and I don't expect anyone to pick that up. Now I can only speak for myself but I do love flying and you are not gonna have to convince me if it means I get more people to fly with.
Aspius I fly from time to time, been looking at the tank game side if it that was recently released, have you tried it?
i tried it when they first did it as a test project but that was long ago and nowhere near of where they are today. I have seen some videos of people playing the Tiger 1 and KV-1S but it's not released yet and is probably a couple months away.
