A new TAW season is underway

October 12, 2020

2–3 minutes

The IL-2: Great Battles Series Tactical Air War server is underway starting with the early eastern front 1941 Battle of Moscow map running as the first map being actively fought over for control of both the ground and the skies with the servers’ moving frontline making for some seriously interactive and challenging battles with a few new tweaks. Here’s the latest!

The most challenging server

The Tactical Air War servers isn’t always at the top of the server charts but when it is you know a new season is on. TAW is the IL-2 series’ most challenging server with the most “hardcore” options enabled (or disabled as it might be) to ensure the maximum challenge. New this time around is the removal of the technochat – a feature asked for by some players and now in place on TAW. This is a fairly significant change as it forces pilots to rely even more on the in-cockpit controls.

Although I suspect its going to be somewhat detrimental to my enjoyment of the server, others are probably enjoying the new challenge. I think it’s a mistake to remove it but the server does have a reputation to uphold in the challenge department.

Also new to the series is the addition of SRS on the TAW server. The third party radio system that provides an in-game communications option that is more specific to the server than a Discord group. Find out more about SRS here.

~~Unclear is the addition of the Yak-9 and Yak-9T to the fray~~. The planeset at present hasn’t been updated since the last season. A number of pilots on the typically outnumbered Allied side would probably like to see these newest additions of the Yak line added – particularly in the later stages of the campaign with the more late war fighters.

Update at October 13 at 10:52 am EDT The admins have informed me that the Yak-9 and 9T will be available and so will the Hurricane if it becomes available soon enough into the season. Great additions to the set!

Back into the fray

I went on the server earlier today to check out the new season along with indie-flight sim developer Jon Coughlin who is always up for a good TAW sortie. We struck a few enemy convoys on the southern section of the frontline taking out several tanks and vehicles along the way.

Despite the challenges posed by not having the technochat (and the helpful details it provides in a non-clickable cockpit environment) we were able to get our Pe-2’s going and made it to target and back again. The Pe-2 is an aircraft I rarely fly outside of TAW but there I feel like I’ve become a specialist at it with its versatile dive-bombing and low level attack capability – and now we can enjoy it with its new 4K textures. It looks great.

We haven’t met the Luftwaffe yet but I imagine we will at some point.

6 responses to “A new TAW season is underway”

aphorismenoi

October 13, 2020 at 2:39 am

Technochat has been removed the last (Western) iteration of TAW already.

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1. ShamrockOneFive
  
  October 13, 2020 at 6:51 am
  
  Missed that one. I would have been disappointed then too 😎
  
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aphorismenoi

October 13, 2020 at 8:05 am

I can think of other reasons to turn off technochat than just doing it for the sake of upholding a reputation to be hardcore. I could feel your disappointment in the this pointed remark — something usually absent in your articles.

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1. ShamrockOneFive
  
  October 13, 2020 at 8:06 am
  
  I’d love to know other reasons for not having it. IMHO it was a severe disappointment and it took me from being excited about the new campaign to somewhat dejected. I did let that creep in there in a way that I usually don’t do.
  
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Atom

October 13, 2020 at 10:09 am

When facing with a difficulty, people usually have two attitudes: overcome it or avoid it. Just like thousands of years ago, a primitive man encountered a saber-toothed tiger on the prairie, he could only choose to fight or escape. No choice is wrong, after all, as long as you survive, it is good. The changes to TAW this season are a challenge for us, so I can understand your complaints. I also saw the same complaints on the forum, and even threatened to quit. Some hope that TAW will withdraw the changes so that they can return to the familiar environment before.

But I also see people working hard to overcome problems, whether it is buying more expensive and simulated equipment, writing macro commands， recording time for operations, or reading the engine management manual carefully again… I see some people working hard and they hope to overcome those who are not prepared.

No choice is absolutely right, or it must be wrong. After all, whether you defeated the tiger, or became its dinner, or you successfully ran away, whether it is a predator or a prey, the world continues to evolve aimlessly.

Thanks for your blog, I love it!

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1. ShamrockOneFive
  
  October 13, 2020 at 10:35 am
  
  Hi Atom! Thanks for the comments! I appreciate your and other’s perspective on this.
  
  While I think challenge is useful and good generally, I am not always a fan of making things harder for the sake of harder.
  
  The reason, as I see it, that we have technochat for some of these systems is because we don’t have good feedback on those systems the way a real pilot would have feedback. Solve those problems and I’m satisfied with less GUI, but in the absence of that, I just don’t see this as a good sim experience.
  
  I want to remain humble here. Some want more challenge, some less, and I’m not the arbiter of how it should or has to be. Certainly I am feeling disappointment and not finding it to be a positive change and I rarely shirk from a challenge.
  
  Again, I appreciate your perspective on this as well.
  
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