Scarce scares and wall-to-wall wins (Thoughts on Korea IL-2’s career mode)

Yesterday evening command of the Sabre-rattling 12th FBS squadron passed to Major Furnace Amberwick after Major Terence Torrance, my alter aero for much of the past week, failed to return from a bomber interception mission near Old Baldy. The fact that Torrance wasn’t killed by MiGs or flak, but perished in a mid-air collision, is revealing. Right now a number of factors conspire to make career-mode sorties in the eminently likeable, exceptionally handsome Korea IL-2 less dangerous and less exciting than they could be.

In addition to a linear campaign composed of fifteen prefabricated missions for Mustangs and (later) Shooting Stars, 1CGS’s latest combat flight sim offers ‘careers’ – the opportunity to lead squadrons of F-80s, F-86s, F-51s, MiG-15s, Yak-9s, or Il-10s over many months.

Although your outfit’s efforts don’t influence the course of the war or the position of the frontline (A true dynamic campaign is in the works) as almost every aspect of sortie planning is in your hands and poor results can lead to squadron resupply problems and, ultimately, your dismissal, career outings have the potential to focus the mind and dry the mouth more effectively than quick, single, and campaign missions.

At the moment the fly in the ointment is jeopardy, specifically, the lack of it. I’ve flown dozens of career jaunts in the past seven days, and disappointingly most of them have felt like milk runs. Thanks to ineffective flak, and scarce, half-hearted bandits, by far the biggest dangers I’ve faced have been collisions with terrain and other aircraft.

The frankly feeble AAA and the surprising rarity of enemy fighters caused me to shelve my first Korea IL-2 career a day after commencing it.

You’d think Sojwa Seung-gi Goo and his fellow Beast pilots would have been having a torrid time by May 1951, but actually the career engine was letting us molest convoys, airfields, and front line positions, pretty much unchecked.

The only times my rear gunner fired his UBT MG in anger was when a post-attack climb presented him with an irresistible shooting gallery of vehicles or grunts to brass up.

Switching to a Sabre career paid immediate dividends in terms of sortie variety. The daily missions* offered to Terence Torrance included CAS, interdiction, bomber intercepts, armed recon, and airfield attacks.

* Each day as squadron CO you get to organise up to three sorties.

Now, occasionally, there were reasons to glance over my shoulder, and order my wingman to guard my six. And yet, still, the intensity and fear I was hoping to encounter on a regular basis failed to materialise.

I imagine it wouldn’t be hard for 1CGS to inject extra danger into career mode. While making fighters more aggressive may be complicated, upping the skills of AI flak flingers, and increasing the chances of meeting aerial opposition, would, you’d think, be fairly simple.

Maybe the sortie choices presented via the map at the start of the day need to be rated according to risk and reward. Feeling brave or fatalistic? Tackle a particularly hot target! Feeling bruised or weary? Do the bare minimum to keep your superiors happy and the present op on track.

Once career outings become more perilous and challenging perhaps the devs can start making the world in which they occur a tad more interesting. Outside of the bubble of territory that surrounds a target or constitutes a patrol area, the sim’s version of war-torn Korea while undeniably winsome isn’t especially war-torn.

For example, you never glimpse incidental scraps or see other squadrons going about their business. The fact that I could, at any point during a Sabre sally, head to the nearest KPAF airfield and safely practice touch-and-gos until my fuel ran out, demonstrates how flimsy and localised the game’s martial illusion actually is.

Logistical issues have yet to threaten my consistently ‘very high’ squadron efficiency rating. Yes, there have been times when I’ve had to ground the whole squadron for a day due to a fuel shortage, and occasions when a lack of airframes has meant smaller raids than normal, but generally supply droughts have been down to lousy planning rather than genuine wont. None of the problems have had any long-term impact.

Sortie success generates the request tokens that are needed to manually or automatically order deliveries of fuel, ordnance, ‘equipment’, and replacement aircraft and pilots. As I’ve found it almost impossible to ‘fail’ sorties, the flow of request tokens has always been adequate. If 1CGS tweak career balance, perhaps this potentially interesting play element will grow in significance.

I was a little surprised not to find fatigue bars in pilot files. The only reason to shift fliers from the ‘active’ to the ‘reserve’ sections of the squadron management interface seems to be injury or death. Weirdly, the game doesn’t do this kind of housework for you.

The attributes pilots do possess – discipline, courage, and skills – can be boosted by medal awards. Because gongs arrive by the crate-load and must be dispensed manually, medal ceremonies quickly become a source of irritation rather than pride.

In theory it’s possible to lead your squadron from an invulnerable desk rather than a hazardous cockpit. Relayed via a series of text messages, sorties not involving the player are invariably less destructive and more costly than participatory ones, however, in my experience, they’re never unmitigated disasters.

Aware of forum reports of reluctant wingmen, I’ve been keeping an eye out for malingering AI aircraft this week. While it would be nice if a few of my comrades strafed, rocketed, and bombed as energetically and effectively as I do, most seem to get stuck in and contribute something to the mission. Happily, I’ve not seem anyone plough into the ground for no reason either.

One advantage of the current semi-dynamic approach to careers is players get a gentle history lesson as they lead. As time passes different historical ops festoon the planning map with new arrows and blobs, and change the areas where you fly and the types of sorties you’re offered. Newspaper front pages also provide a sense of the broader war. If you’re as spongy as I am, there’s a good chance Korea IL-2 will end up influencing your reading and listening habits. Not for the first time, yesterday evening I found myself learning while burning.

Currently, career mode provide a pleasing sense of continuity, and offers choices and activities unavailable in campaigns. What it doesn’t seem capable of doing is surprising, stretching, or scaring sentient squadron leaders all that often. I suspect this slightly strange state of affairs won’t last long, but until things change there’s always Home by Christmas (the linear campaign) and custom missions.