UP3 RC4 Patch Pack enhancements are listed here with no claim to completeness.
Newest enhancements come first, older ones down the list.
The "Enhanced Weapons Release Control" mod enables you to select the amount of rockets/bombs to launch/drop for each trigger key press, and the gap between two subsequent launches/drops in case of salvo fire.
For instance, here you can see how a full salvo of all available bombs gets selected:
Here the shortest delay is chosen, max. delay would be 2 seconds:
This is the result, using a single bomb trigger key press:
Here are the required key assignments to utilize the "EWRC" mod features:
"Automatic dock mode" on TB-3 and I-16 SPB planes.
Instead of continuously pressing the "attach/detach" key, for attaching the key will now enable a "dock mode".
You will see something like in the following images.
Here the plane is off docking limits, which means that it might be too far from the mother plane (>20x docking distance), too fast, too slow or the course might not match sufficiently:
As soon as you get within <=20x docking distance and speed and course are within limits, the dock mode will show your current distance, visually and audibly ("park distance control" beep style):
The closer you get, the less dots are filled:
When no filled dot is left, docking will happen, i.e. a single filled dot is closest distance before docking event:
After having docked, the automatic mode automatically gets disabled:
The require key assignment is the "Attach/Detach Aircraft" key:
Ordnance View "Enhanced", the way it should always have been, going beyond what TD has to offer...
In order to use the new Ordnance View (and the backported separate Stationary Camera View) modes, please make sure to assign keys to the new functions accordingly:
Camera Mod is now part of the Patch Pack
"Semi Self Illumination" when an aircraft is on fire...
We have 4 types of German "AB" bomb containers in IL-2, namely the AB-23, AB-250, AB-500 and AB-1000.
The submunition of these bomb containers is:
- AB-23: 23 x SD 2 "Butterfly" bomblets, released within 0.3 seconds.
- AB-250: 144 x SD 2 "Butterfly" bomblets, released within 2 seconds.
- AB-500: 74 x SD 4 HL Hollow Charge bomblets, released within 1 second.
- AB-1000: 372 x B2.2EZ Incendiary bomblets, released in 5 charges within 5 seconds.
When you drop "AB" bomb containers, both the bomb fuze and the bomb delay settings are very important.
The "bomb fuze" setting determines the time from dropping the bomb until the submunition will be released.
There's a minimum time for the "bomb fuze" setting depending on the AB bomb type, if you select a lower "bomb fuze" time, the minimum time will apply instead.
Minimum "bomb fuze" times are:
- AB-23: 0.75s
- AB-250: 1s
- AB-500: 1s
- AB-1000: 1.5s
The "bomb delay" setting determines the time from bomblet impact to detonation.
Due to constructive limitations, the SD 4 HL bomblets always use a zero delay meaning that they will always explode right on impact.
The bomblets look like this:
SD 2:
SD 4 HL:
B2.2EZ
Because of the "butterfly" design, the drag on SD 2 bomblets is very high, therefore they will have a very steep trajectory once the butterfly mechanism has unfolded (happens within 0.5 seconds after release).
The best tactics to use this bomb is to either do a dive attack, or drop it close to the ground, immediately before passing above the target area.
Use bomb delay setting to avoid being damaged by fragments.
This bomblet type is very effective against non-armored vehicels, planes, buildings, non-armored artillery and infantry. It's reasonably effective against tanks if dropped in concentrated manner right above them.
The SD 4 HL has pretty much a normal bomb shape.
Since on release from the container the bombs fall "chaotically" off the container, the trajectory in the beginning is slightly more steep and the bombs decellerate quite much initially, but they recover to a normal trajectory within ~1 second.
The best tactics is to drop this bomb like normal ones, just take into account that they will fall slightly short compared to a normal "SC" bomb type.
This bomblet type is particularly effective against tanks and small vessels but you need to score direct hits.
It's reasonably effective against anything non-armored too, since this bomb also has a fragmentation component.
The B2.2EZ shape is like an "extended" bomb.
Since on release from the container the bombs fall "chaotically" off the container, the trajectory in the beginning is slightly more steep and the bombs decellerate quite much initially, but they recover to a normal trajectory within ~1 second.
The best tactics is to drop this bomb like normal ones, just take into account that they will fall slightly short compared to a normal "SC" bomb type.
It works pretty well on level-drops from ~1-2km altitude against large targets like airfields.
It's reasonably effective against anything non-armored, since this bomb also has a fragmentation component (albeit a very small one) and it will set anything on fire if you score direct hits. The latter might kill one or another tank, too.
Me-262 V3 Simulation enhancements:
- Elevator neutralized while being wing alee
- Engine Acceleration (40s for idle -> full) set according to historical values
- Throttle movement limits adjusted, now "spikes" of sudden changes up to 10% are allowed and the shortes time for idle->full is just below 15 seconds (full->idle twice as fast)
Please find a demonstration of fastest possible Throttle movement in "throttle up" direction and engine spoolup time below.
You will notice that the throttle up test starts when chocks are engaged, right at the beginning the throttle jumps from idle to 10% ("spike" test) and goes up to 100% in the fastes time without blowing up the engines.
Engine acceleration is distinctively behind throttle movement.
Once throttle is at 100% you will see a time (in milliseconds) for this test.
Once the engines reach >8000 RPM (full speed without time limits), you will see the spoolup time (in milliseconds) too.
Throttling down can be twice as fast as throttling up, but engine reaction times are the same.
You can see other planes' control surfaces moving and see where the pilots look at, e.g. this AI plane is in a dogfight with a Spitfire:
AI pilots watch their wing leader while flying in formation:
Patch Level shown for all players online (and server):
Torpedo failure probability depends on how far you exceed Torpedo drop limits (press Tab key to see drop parameters ingame):
New Mod Settings Screen available (see "Mods" Button):
The Screen holds lots of additional helpful settings for the game:
For a full list of setting descriptions, see the
Manual for new "Mod Settings" GUI (included in Patch Pack Download Package):
UP3 Patch Pack Mod Settings Manual
IL-2 Selector 3.5.0 introduces "Piped Logging".
Stock IL-2 uses a logging mechanism relying on buffered logfile access using Windows OS'es built-in file buffers to keep logfile access fast in most conditions.
However, this mechanism has two major flaws:
- When lots of data need to be written quickly, even buffered access causes slowdowns on IL-2.
This happens for instance when there's a bug/glitch that causes repetitive logfile output, such as dropping parafrag bombs in Stock IL-2, which causes endless log lines written to inform you that a stretched mesh (the parachute of each bomb in this case) cannot have shadows. - Most notably, when IL-2 crashes, the logfile will be truncated.
This is particularly annoying because the relevant and much needed information about the reason for the crash would be at the very end of the logfile, but since that part has not yet been flushed from the filesystem buffers, exactly this valuable information will get lost.
For the second reason (truncated logs), years ago an "InstantLog" mod was developed which bypassed file system buffers by flushing, closing and re-opening the logfile after each line written to it.
This reliably solves the issue of truncated logfiles, but makes matters worse on the performance impact of massive logfile write accesses in short time.
"Piped Logging" brings the best of both worlds together.
A separate Process ("PipeLogger.exe") accepts log data from IL-2 at no time (literally!). IL-2 can run at full speed all time with no delays from any log output.
At the same time, PipeLogger.exe works independently from IL-2 and takes care of handling the log data, including a temporary in-memory buffer, and writing and flushing that data to disk absolutely reliably. For instance, if IL-2 crashes, PipeLogger.exe got all log data from IL-2 already (because it happens at no time) and keeps running until the last bits of log data have successfully been written to disk.
In order to use "Piped Logging", please set...
[Mods]
InstantLog=2
...in your conf.ini.
You can find an outline of how the different logging mechanisms are working in the graph below: