Hi Everyone.

[Bader40]

I've just treated myself to IL2 Forgotten Battles and the ace expansion pack after deciding to remove Combat flight Simulator 3 off my computer.

After months of fine tweeking and trying everything to improve the frame rate on CFS3, i tried Il2 and was amazed at the difference in the quality and speed of the graphics.

I hope that you will be a great source of info for the future.

[Luckyboy1]

Welcome to the addiction... and no, there's no cure!

Forgotten Battles alone was easily worth the $39.00 plus Govenor's kickback it cost me when it first came out. Ace Expansion Pack was easily worth the $29.00 plus fees to get as well.

However, believe it or not, you've only got half the game. Get the complete, all on one disc collection of Forgotten Battles/Ace Expansion Pack/Pacific Fighters combined install on DVD all patched up already for you to the 4.04 version, which is what everyone's playing right now.

You will need a Gig of RAM to be mostly stutter free and it is a bit more demanding of graphics, but it looks better and has so much more to offer.

A game still more demanding than our computers can easily deal with. Not bad for a 4 + year old game!

And in all that time, there has been so much to learn that I'm still a novice about this game.

Also, see Luckyboy's Guide For Complete Users.

[Bader40]

Hey Luckboy, thanks for the welcome. I hope to get the Pacific Fighters expansion soon (i just hope my 2.0 gig AMD system will cope).
Have you any thoughts on the Combat over Europe expansion pack?(it was bundled with the Firepower expansion pack i got with Firepower for CFS3)

[100th_Alien]

Welcome to the madness,
Feel free to wing up with the 332nd anytime, At least 2 of us are on 20 of the 24 hours a day. 99th or 100th, we also offer training.

[MaXMhZ]

Welcome Bader!
You'll find IL-2 series sims is the best out there It is amazingly adaptable to any PC system /peripheral and has an ever increasing and very active community. Airwarfare.com is the perfect example of this. Look around the main site and forums, and don't hesitate to ask anything As with any flight sim there's a lot to learn, but over-all IL-2 series is very intuitive - and you allways got Airwarfare and the pdf manual on disc 2 of Forgotten Battles, which has some more detailed info than the booklet that came with the game.

You'll find IL-2 sims outperform all other flightsims on the market in every aspect. when patched up to the latest version (4.04m) you have a total of 282 different planes to fly (including the subtypes and AI planes which can be flown on external views with a bit of notepad editing, The flight- and damage models are very close to reality while you can still select enough options to tone it down to more game-like behaviour.The game has a superb support by 1C:Maddox, publishing free add-ons with maps, planes and improvements sometimes several times per year - that's where the Complete series DVD that was just published comes in handy - it would save you a download of several hundred Megabytes You can even talk to Oleg Maddox himself about future developements in Oleg's Ready Room on UBI - ever talked to Bad Billy about CFS and what You would like to see in his game ? Once you're a bit used to a plane you like, don't forget to try online play. It's one of the best features of IL-2

[100th_Alien]

Welcome Bader!
You'll find IL-2 series sims is the best out there It is amazingly adaptable to any PC system /peripheral and has an ever increasing and very active community. Airwarfare.com is the perfect example of this. Look around the main site and forums, and don't hesitate to ask anything As with any flight sim there's a lot to learn, but over-all IL-2 series is very intuitive - and you allways got Airwarfare and the pdf manual on disc 2 of Forgotten Battles, which has some more detailed info than the booklet that came with the game.

You'll find IL-2 sims outperform all other flightsims on the market in every aspect. when patched up to the latest version (4.04m) you have a total of 282 different planes to fly (including the subtypes and AI planes which can be flown on external views with a bit of notepad editing, The flight- and damage models are very close to reality while you can still select enough options to tone it down to more game-like behaviour.The game has a superb support by 1C:Maddox, publishing free add-ons with maps, planes and improvements sometimes several times per year - that's where the Complete series DVD that was just published comes in handy - it would save you a download of several hundred Megabytes You can even talk to Oleg Maddox himself about future developements in Oleg's Ready Room on UBI - ever talked to Bad Billy about CFS and what You would like to see in his game ? Once you're a bit used to a plane you like, don't forget to try online play. It's one of the best features of IL-2

Very well said and oh so true, nice post Maxmhz ~S~

[Bader40]

Ain't E Bay a wonderful thing, i've just acquired Pacific Fighters for the £1.
I have also started the process of downloading the required patches...thank god i've just upgraded to broadband

[MaXMhZ]

yeah broadband is very nice for IL2, especialy for hosting an online game To get the most out of it, try a download accelerator like getright or Download Accelerator Plus. They will open multiple channels at the same time increasing download speed a lot if the servers can't handle the load. They will also let you resume a previously stopped/paused download. Gamershell.com has IL-2 patches mirrored too if 3DGamers is too slow Usualy you can find a highspeed host local to your country for the patches through them.

[CrazySchmidt]

Welcome aboard pal, your life will never be the same again trust me.

Prepare yourself for all the illness that goes with addition!! It's a dark and yet beautifully colourful madness we all know as the IL-2 addiction.

Cheers, CrazySchmidt.

[Quasar]

Welcome Bader. I too flew for the CFS3 until I found this holy grail of flight simulators. You will find that reading about the real life of fighter pilots will come in handy in this simulator. Check out the Book Review section for some great readings. That alone is a testament to how wonderful IL-2 really is, and it's realisms.
enjoy!

[Greyhawk]

Welcome Bader... am new here myself , but not to combat flight sims/groups/forums. Took a bit of time off/away from it...due to job,family, life etc...anyway...was working on the final section of our remodeling project in the basement the other day(the first section completed- earning many Brownie points with the wife AKA- Happy wife...Happy Life= flight sim room in basement)...also was setting up the PC when I was fortunate enough to run across this site. This is loaded with tons of great stuff for simmers such as us. My thanks to Whomever that owns or maintains all the info etc on this site... again, Thanks!!!
Again...Welcome Bader !!