Fans of the IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover and Desert Wings – Tobruk series should take note of the latest patch for Desert Wings – Tobruk. The number of changes is small but at least one of these items on the list is extremely consequential. Let’s have a look!

Patch and patch notes

The patch came out January 15 (along with a hotfix on the 20th to fix an unspecified technical issue) and it includes some key updates to the sim. The patch notes, released on the IL-2 forums, include the following:

• *** All aircraft types have rollrates when flown by AI corrected. [RAF74_Buzzsaw]
• *** Fiat CR-42 aileron m2 area corrected… rollrate decreased. [RAF74_Buzzsaw]
• *** Gloster Gladiator II and II/Trop have level speeds, drag coefficients, governor and prop details corrected.  Players should find the aircraft more competitive. [RAF74_Buzzsaw]
• *** Dedicated/Headless Server: removed another “OK” Dialogbox on “Could not connect to STEAM”. Server just exits (with explanatory log entries)

Of the four notes, there is one that stands out to me well above all of the others and that’s the first one. All aircraft types have had their roll rates, when flown by the AI, corrected. This was a significant issue for me and another example of where having the AI flying with a different set of rules provided me (and I’m sure a few of you) with a major source of frustration. Although the flight models do remain separate, bringing the AI roll rates in line with human flown aircraft will be a major change as it means that you won’t get into some weird dogfight situations and get outrolled by aircraft that simply should not be able to do that.

I haven’t had a chance to check this out in person but I will be and I will be doing some Journal updates featuring the sim again this year so look out for that.