It’s been a little while since I did a Community Q&A but I’m changing all that with a brand new instalment. For this Q&A, I’m talking to Jaegermeister who is one of the most prolific mission and campaign makers for the IL-2 Sturmovik series. Did you know that he has created over 100 for the series? Neither did I!

His latest release is a payware campaign called Overlord which puts you in the seat of a P-51B Mustang flying for the 354th Fighter Group and I caught up with him to find out about his process for creating these campaigns and to learn a little about what is coming up next. Read on!

The Q&A

The first question I always love to ask people is how they got into the hobby. Have you loved aviation since you were young, or did you come into it later on in life? How did you get into flying combat flight sims? When did you start making missions and campaigns?

I had my first experience with a flight simulator during a Middle School field trip when my class went on a tour of Delta Airlines, and I got to try my hand in the pilot’s seat of a full size 747 cockpit simulator. I landed a little hard and blew out a tire before we slid off the runway, but everyone survived so I guess I did OK for a 14-year-old.

After my last year of High School, I spent the summer with my uncle in Houston, Texas. He worked on the space program as a design engineer for NASA at the Johnson Space center and introduced me to a few of his astronaut friends who flew T-38s out of the airport across the street from his office. I spent some time talking to them about flying airplanes and rockets while they showed me around their sporty little jets, and they really loved their jobs. Uncle Nick had a small plane and after flying with him on a checkout ride, I took a couple of flying lessons and got some flight time in a Cessna trainer. After that summer I always wanted to fly, but never had enough extra time or money to continue the lessons.

Years later I discovered PC based flight simulators and flew every one available during the 1990s. After IL2 Sturmovik was released, it became my favorite because I preferred basic stick and rudder to flying in a computerized cockpit with radar and missiles. After building a dedicated flight simulator computer and flying the limited number of missions in the game I tried multiplayer, but never found the kill count race very interesting. That was when I started making my own missions that were based on historical events and I really enjoyed flying those.

A community member named Extreme_One made the first scripted campaign about the Battle of Britain on an improvised map, and I knew right away that was what I wanted to do too. My first Campaign was for the F4F-4 Wildcat and it was called Cactus Diary, which is still available on Mission4Today. That was in 2004 or 2005, and I have been steadily making Campaigns and single missions ever since.

Of all the campaigns that you’ve done over the years, which was your favorite to work on to date?

The campaign I most enjoyed working on would have to be Cat O’9 Tales in IL2 Pacific Fighters. It was based on the career of Hamilton “One-Slug” McWhorter III, flying Wildcats and Hellcats off carriers in the Mediterranean and the Pacific.

The reason it was such a great experience for me is that after some research on the project, I found out he lived about 15 minutes away from me in Atlanta, Georgia. I got his phone number out of the telephone directory that still existed back then and spoke to his wife on the phone. He didn’t hear very well anymore, but his wife wrote down my questions and then gave him the phone to tell me his stories about his many missions. I was able to recreate some of them but because of map limitations, not as many as I would have liked to do.

He enjoyed the opportunity to talk about it, and I sent him a video of the campaign once it was done. He was a great pilot and inspiration to many people. Being able to hear about his missions firsthand really influenced my mission making from then on and I always try to keep the details as close as possible to historical events out of respect for the people who really flew them.

How do you approach creating a campaign and what is your inspiration?

When I am considering ideas for a new campaign, the first thing I do is select an aircraft I want to work with and research the units that flew it. I look at the available maps and search for the airfields they operated from to see if they are represented in the game, and if I can find the right bases, I narrow down the time frame when the front lines and target areas are close enough to keep the missions from being uncomfortably long.

I dislike improvising and substituting one place for another, although I do frequently make missions much shorter than they were in reality. If I find enough possible missions that meet these requirements I make a list of dates, times, mission types and possible scenarios. Then I start looking for as much information as I can find on that unit and frequently use at least 3 or 4 sources to get different perspectives of the events. I study the ground war in the area too, so I have a good overview of the tactical situation for the storyline.

After that, I let the narratives inspire me and when I run across a good story or anecdote or sometimes just a couple of lines about an interesting mission, I see if I can recreate it in 3D. Sometimes it works out and makes the cut, and sometimes not so much. I probably have as many campaigns that I started and never finished as I do completed ones.

I usually do Western Front missions now, just because I can find a lot more information on that theatre. BlackSix is in a much better position to do Eastern front missions, so I leave that to him. Obviously, I read a lot.

What kind of preparatory work do you do before you set out and start making missions?

As I previously mentioned, I read as much information as I can find about the time frame in question, and then I start building a map template. I look up the front lines on historical maps and locate the ground units involved on the front lines. I study the unit markings of the squadrons involved and if I don’t have the right skins in game, particularly for the player flight, I make the ones I need or recruit some help from the skinning community.

I look up aerial reconnaissance pictures of the airfields and target areas and then try to recreate them on the map with the available static objects. The last step is to finalize the list of missions and make sure there is enough variety in the mission types so that it doesn’t become repetitive and boring.

The final number of missions varies according to what l am trying to accomplish with the campaign. Then it’s finally time to put it all together in a preliminary mission and take it for a test drive to see how it works out in the virtual cockpit.

You’ve done quite a few missions and campaigns for the IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles Series over the years. Some of them have even been included in the sim. Which one do you think is most overlooked and would want to encourage people to try out?

I think my most overlooked campaign would be Against the Tide, in the Siemens-Schuckert D. IV. That mini campaign was kind of an experiment to see if a companion campaign would help sales of collector aircraft, and I was considering doing a complimentary Sopwith Snipe campaign to mirror it from the Entente side.

Apparently the interest was not there, but that little airplane is a beast. It’s like what I would imagine a Pitts Special with machine guns to be. For a biplane, nothing can touch it and you are truly the master of the Western Front skies. There was enough material to do a longer campaign even though it was not in service very long and the records are a little sketchy. For most of the players out there, I think it would be worth the money to give it a spin and if you buy the collector plane, you get the campaign for free. I am sure players who only fly WWII aircraft would be impressed with how well the earlier aircraft are represented in IL2 and how much fun they are to fly.

Your latest campaign, Overlord, is the first paid campaign that you’ve done for the series. What was the experience like building that campaign versus the others?

I think the main difference between Overlord and the other campaigns I have made in the past is that both my own mission making abilities and the IL2 Great Battles format have become more refined and complete with the release of the Normandy map. I had all the things I needed for a great campaign come together at a point in my life where I had plenty of time to work on it without much distraction. I really enjoyed flying the P51-B Mustang because it has almost no faults and I had lots of information about a very interesting and exciting period in history.

Over time I have developed various methods of making sure missions progress the way they are supposed to, and I used them all in that campaign, as well as developing some new ones and fine tuning my logic with AAA, vehicles and AI plane formations. Whether a scripted campaign is released as freeware or payware is an internal company decision, and the fact that it is a paid campaign really made no difference to me while I was making it because the ongoing revenue from sales goes to 1C/777 Studios to keep them funded. I am very happy with the results, and I hope the players are too!

How has your approach to mission and campaign making changed over the years? Any lessons learned that you might share with someone getting started in doing the same thing?

When I first started making campaigns I read stories, made simple missions based on those events, and connected them together. The goal was to participate in a story line and have fun feeling like I was a part of something important that was happening around me. Now I still do that, but I focus a lot more on the technical details of the mission and refining the “logic” as we call it to make the missions run smoothly, keep the frame rates as high as possible with heavy CPU usage in VR, and make the AI behave as realistically as possible. With that in mind I have narrowed down my approach to some fundamental basics and would be happy to share them.

To optimize performance from the IL2 game engine you should disable or delete complex planes and vehicles that are not within visual or firing range of the player. This must be planned from the start with parked aircraft, vehicles, and AAA at your home base deactivating as soon as you are about 1 kilometer away. Throughout the mission, you activate new entities wherever you go with zones, and then they deactivate when out of range. As you return to your home base or another one, the previous entities are reactivated as though they never went away. The most common mistake I see with newer mission makers is that they have not thought this through and have simply placed enabled vehicles and objects in large numbers and wonder why the mission runs like a slide show later when new entities are added. It is also important not to exceed 30 active planes or complex ground vehicles in a mission at the same time.

Another important point is even though we are all anxious to fly the missions, you should fine tune and thoroughly test the first mission before you move on to the next one so that you don’t have to correct the same mistakes repeatedly. Once you make sure everything works without fail in the first one, you can copy that mission, move front lines, vehicles, and other objects around, and speed up the creation of your later missions dramatically.

I have also learned to write the mission briefings as I work on each mission and not wait to write the storyline after all the missions are done. I have realized now that I forget a lot of my research after I make five or ten other missions and have to go back and look up the details again. A good story is important but does not make or break a good campaign. Some of the most popular campaigns available right now barely even tell you where you are going in the briefing, while others have extensive backstories, and it doesn’t improve the actual missions. The flow of the mission and the features it utilizes to keep you interested in your surroundings and at least a little on edge seem to be the key factors for success. 

What is your Favorite aircraft that you just love to fly in the sim?

I will have to answer that question in a couple of parts because we are talking about a collection of flight simulators here, not just one.

My favorite aeroplane to fly in Flying Circus is the Albatros D.V. It just feels solid, reliable, and deadly… what more could you ask for? I made a campaign for it just because I liked flying it and most of my work and interest in Flying Circus originated there. Red Knights portrays the adventures of Manfred von Richthofen’s little brother Lothar and the Red Baron’s other protégés while he was away from the front line touring the country and having medals pinned on the lapel of his cavalry tunic. You start flying with Jasta 11 during the early times when things were going in their favor, and gradually learn that being a scout pilot in The Great War was not for the faint of heart.

My favorite plane to fly in WWII is currently a toss-up between the P51-B Mustang and the Spitfire Mk. IXc. It is hard to find anything to complain about in the Mustang B with a Malcolm hood. With half a fuel load, it is faster than most other fighters, can turn with all of them and the 4 .50 caliber machine guns are adequate to deal with most threats if you are a good shot. The newly released Spitfire variant is very competitive for the era and gives me a distinct feeling of confidence after the merge. It has a notoriously small fuel capacity but that does not really create a problem since we are typically flying less than 90 minutes on a single mission. The 20mm cannons really give it some punch in a close fight so the Spitfire may be taking over as my new favorite. It has a versatile bomb load so it can do air to ground work and many possible modifications to cover a wide range of variants during it’s time in use.

You’re doing quite a bit of work for the Great Battles Series these days. Can you share anything about what you’re doing next? If not, can you give us a hint?

1C/777 is keeping me busy with a laundry list of new and revised content that is being added to the game with every update. I doubt most people know that I have over 100 original missions already published in the Great Battles series, both as single scenario missions and scripted campaigns. Those are all listed under my profile details on the IL2 forum if anyone wants to look. I have recently revised some of the older scripted campaigns that the original authors don’t have time to work on anymore, and since that is completed for now, I will be working on single missions for the new Flying Circus planes that are being rolled out over the summer. The Sopwith Pup is almost ready, and the Airco DH.2 and Albatros D.III aren’t too far behind. All those new machines will need appropriate missions to fly them in.

I think I also gave you a hint as to something I am working on at the end of the previous question. I conducted a poll on the IL2 forum to see how much interest there was in a Focke-Wulf 190-A8 campaign since there are currently very few Axis campaigns for the Normandy module. Unfortunately, there was not much positive response, but that result may be due to the limited percentage of European players frequenting the English forum. The Spitfire IXc and the Mosquito were by far the most popular responses. Since the Mosquito was not operating from bases in Normandy and flew across the English Channel throughout the Normandy campaign, that makes it the less desirable choice of the two favorites when it comes down to my criterion for planning a new scripted campaign. Every mission would take more than an hour with a long flight across the Channel both ways. I suppose it’s possible that all three of those potential campaigns may be completed someday, but the new Spitfire IXc is at the top of the list.

I think Overlord must be reasonably popular with the community as I have been given the green light to keep producing scripted campaigns for Great Battles for the foreseeable future. After that your guess is as good as mine.

Thanks to Jaegermeister!

I wanted to express my appreciation to Jaegermeister for taking the time to answer my questions in such depth and detail! It’s always interesting to hear from members of the community on the unique things that they are creating and he has contributed considerably to the experience of many IL-2 series pilots.

A full review of Jaegermeister’s latest campaign is coming out in the next couple of days here on Stormbirds. You can also check out Overlord yourself which is available for purchase at a standard price of $9.99 USD from either the IL-2 online store or from the Steam store.