How to avoid certain mission types (German campaign)

[Geier 0]

As my lovable pilot Geier now is but one mission away from getting 17 hours combat flying in his belt I thought I'd pass along some ideas I've developed along the way. If these have already been beaten to death in earlier discussions, well, there's nothing inherently wrong with flogging a dead horse, is there?

First off, I'm now running on settings which I've decided to name LaLD (Live and Let Die) which is pretty much as far away from DiD as you can go in that I'm using the Unkillable setting for my pilot. Why? Because I want to see how things turn out. I've taken some ideas off Gimpy's excellent thread from the old forum. I use TAC and have been resorting to Warp too on some missions with heavy clouds where I couldn't reach half of my waypoints otherwise. Labels are also on. It doesn't mean I rack up tons of kills. Not at all, I have 3 confirmed and 3 claims plus 7 rejected. Three of the rejects were Camels and N16's which aren't available in the kill lists. In fact, the Camels shouldn't exist at all since I'm flying March 1917. But anyway. I run away from any scouts that are higher than me OR more than me. All the time.

 

What I've read has led me to believe that the Germans did not, at least not from April 1917 onward, use scouts to escort bombers unless it was attacks directed near or at the frontlines. Neither did they attack airfields or railyards with scouts. Scouts existed to bring down the two-seaters over German lines and to attack obs balloons. If opportunity knocked, of course they knocked down single-seaters as well. I'm also not fond of the way the Scramble!-missions are implemented either so I often give those a miss too. What I do when a mission arrives that I don't feel like flying, I exit and run a QC. Whatever I feel like. This advances time a bit and I can jump into Campaign again and see what kind of mission is given this time. Most of the time it will be a mission inside German territory and I can play it. I don't get any credit for kills or do I get more registered flight time. QC's can weel be viewed as practise for your pilot with mock combats and what have you. I guess what I'm saying is that there was a big difference in strategy between the British and the German air forces and I'm trying to adjust my game accordingly. When I do get more competent and familiar I'm sure I would run my future German DiD pilot in a similar way. As a Brit, anything goes.

 

Hmm, I guess I will wonder why I wrote this when I wake up tomo...today. :yes:

[Dej 17]

You have a good point Geier.

 

I've just finished reading 'Aces Falling' by Peter Hart and one thing very, very evident from the contemporary accounts he has used is that there was exactly that difference in strategy between the air forces that you have noted, particularly in the latter half of 1918.

 

I fly British pilots mostly so it hasn't yet given me the frustration it has you but I agree it would be good if the mission generator took account of the difference. Although, as I haven't got past 1917 yet, it wouldn't yet make much difference to me.

[+Polovski 460]

"..Camels shouldn't exist at all since I'm flying March 1917. But anyway. I run away from any scouts that are higher than me OR more than me. All the time."

 

I think this is because of the non English OS, not sure, but we checked and the dates are correct in the squads for appearance of craft (a lot of research there) so all we can think is the date or regional settings affect it

[Geier 0]

Pol:

It's no biggie to me. I promise to write down names of the squadrons next time it happens. I've been running Vista with English (US) settings for at least the last ten days. Last night was the first time I've seen "wrong" AC since I switched OS language and reinstalled OFF. One weird thing was that the first time I ran into Camels they were ID'd as AFC-3 squadron which I don't think exists in the game? Sad to say I'm not 100% sure. I'm sure the new date settings will solve this problem anyway.

 

Dej:

I think the design decision to have similar experiences for both sides are sane and sound. That would be what I guess the majority of the players would want and what is possible/sane to implement. Otherwise, most German missions would be pure intercept missions. They had observers at the front who would give a general height, direction and size for incoming enemy flights and the responding Jasta would send up what they could. My post was more intended as a how-to IF you want to have a more "Germanized" (sure, that's a word, too) experience. Also, most, even almost all, Jasta pilots had experience from flying in two-seater squadrons before being "promoted" to the Jagdstaffeln and already had far more than 17 hours of combat flight under their belts.

[Geier 0]

This looked like info that could prove useful for those interested, posted by Winder in another thread:

----

Guys you can time advance if you enable this in the workshops:

 

Campaign column - Campaign Date Advance - On.

 

And in your campaign interface you get a 'time advance' button under the briefing button.

 

HTH

 

 

WM

 

----

 

I'll be certain to try this out later tonight.

Edited March 6, 2009 by Geier

[Wels 2]

Hello Geier,

 

you have a good point there, i will probably also do it that way. I usually have all help turned to off, that is: target cone, simulator warnings, general warnings, sim warnings, as well the TAC along with labels and brackets are off.

 

I only switch on the labels at the beginning, to see my wingmen's names (for getting the credits, naming them as witnesses), and then switch it off again. I have come to using the TAC, because i just do not see anything in time, and since there is a definite lack of sight and situational awareness due to this monitor i accept this - not always, but mostly.

As well all settings are set to real, apart from "Death on die roll", which is on, and decreases overall difficulty to 80 percent. I have also switched the MG firing spread to "wide", otherwise it is too easy to shoot planes from far distances or so i think. The firing "Bullett cone" is a bit too wide, but the other "normal" one is alreayd too laser-like. Thus you have to really go in to the target, which sometimes looks as hairy as it must have been.

Flying that way life is hard in an E.III, i tell you - at least in june 1916 lol.

 

You are also right in that german fighters seldomly flew over enemy territory - reconnaissance, bombers and Zeppelins are the exception here. It was common practice for single seater scouts, to patrol the front and shoot down two-seaters that would observe german troops movements here, or in the own backyard, like troop build-ups far from the front.

It was definitely prohibited to fly over enemy territory in the early Fokkers, for not giving away the interruptor gear secret.

 

The tides of the air war went to and fro, until spetember 1917, when the german air force began to have real problems due to the shortage of all kinds of material. At the same time the first DH4s began to systematically bomb locations in-land far from the front, and it became almost impossible to stop them. Maybe this could be reflected in the missions in OFF, for either side ?

 

Thanks and greetings,

Catfish

Edited March 6, 2009 by Wels

[+MK2 12]

As my lovable pilot Geier now is but one mission away from getting 17 hours combat flying in his belt I thought I'd pass along some ideas I've developed along the way. If these have already been beaten to death in earlier discussions, well, there's nothing inherently wrong with flogging a dead horse, is there?

First off, I'm now running on settings which I've decided to name LaLD (Live and Let Die) which is pretty much as far away from DiD as you can go in that I'm using the Unkillable setting for my pilot. Why? Because I want to see how things turn out. I've taken some ideas off Gimpy's excellent thread from the old forum. I use TAC and have been resorting to Warp too on some missions with heavy clouds where I couldn't reach half of my waypoints otherwise. Labels are also on. It doesn't mean I rack up tons of kills. Not at all, I have 3 confirmed and 3 claims plus 7 rejected. Three of the rejects were Camels and N16's which aren't available in the kill lists. In fact, the Camels shouldn't exist at all since I'm flying March 1917. But anyway. I run away from any scouts that are higher than me OR more than me. All the time.

 

What I've read has led me to believe that the Germans did not, at least not from April 1917 onward, use scouts to escort bombers unless it was attacks directed near or at the frontlines. Neither did they attack airfields or railyards with scouts. Scouts existed to bring down the two-seaters over German lines and to attack obs balloons. If opportunity knocked, of course they knocked down single-seaters as well. I'm also not fond of the way the Scramble!-missions are implemented either so I often give those a miss too. What I do when a mission arrives that I don't feel like flying, I exit and run a QC. Whatever I feel like. This advances time a bit and I can jump into Campaign again and see what kind of mission is given this time. Most of the time it will be a mission inside German territory and I can play it. I don't get any credit for kills or do I get more registered flight time. QC's can weel be viewed as practise for your pilot with mock combats and what have you. I guess what I'm saying is that there was a big difference in strategy between the British and the German air forces and I'm trying to adjust my game accordingly. When I do get more competent and familiar I'm sure I would run my future German DiD pilot in a similar way. As a Brit, anything goes.

 

Hmm, I guess I will wonder why I wrote this when I wake up tomo...today. :yes:

 

 

Once the patches are implemented by the OFF team , I'll release some modded campaign files for the Germans that will take away those missions for fighters in 1918 (that way you don't have to exit to QC) . It is very easy to do.

 

I already modded an American balloon busintg career where you get many drachen hunting missions assigned to you and it works fine.

[Wels 2]

Hello,

only a correction, i tried to change it in the original post, but too late :

 

"The tides of the air war went to and fro, until september 1918, when the german air force began to have real problems due to the shortage of all kinds of material. ..."

 

Thanks and greetings,

Catfish

[Winston DoRight 3]

Rather than exit to QC to skip unwanted missions, why don't you just set your preference to advance the campaign manually in workshop. Then when you get a mission you don't want you can just advance to the next sortie or a full day if you want.

[Geier 0]

Really recommend the Advance Time Manually option for fliegers so inclined. It suits my approach to a German campaign perfectly.

MK2: That would be, as pretty much everything you do seems to be, awesome. I believe, but probably need more data, that such a setting would be suitable for most of 1917 as well. There is no mention in the Bloody April chapter of any airfield or railyard strikes by the Jastas.

 

However. During the great German offensive of 1918 I do believe attack against airfields in the way of the push would be appropriate. So there you go. No rule without exception I suppose.

[Baywing 0]

You can also take off on a mission, circle the field a bit, shift W until the TAC brings you back to home, land and you at least get credit. I'm not sure how (or even if it is possible) to decline missions, but this seems the better way. I'll use that technique when the weather is really bad, saves me from cloud-induced death.

[+MK2 12]

You can also take off on a mission, circle the field a bit, shift W until the TAC brings you back to home, land and you at least get credit. I'm not sure how (or even if it is possible) to decline missions, but this seems the better way. I'll use that technique when the weather is really bad, saves me from cloud-induced death.

 

You can set advance campaign manually in workshop and when you see a mission you don't want, just advance and it moves to the next flight of the day next mission.