How many "Average Pilots" are out there?

[Guest British_eh]

With discussion/Poll on P3 it seems appropriate to perhaps see how many of you flying DID, minimum of 100%, have reached the 17 hour mark. I'm only 12. 67 hour away, perhaps I'm just not the pilot I once was? OK, so I will digress, but in P2, perhaps 1 of 6 pilots made it to the 17 hour, or average pilot expectancy on the Front, in April 1917. I felt pretty good with that stat.

 

Regards,

 

British_eh

[Bullethead 12]

I've had a guy get as many as 10 hours, but most die after about 6. The vast majority of them die in collisions; very few are actually shot down.

[tttiger 0]

I don't fly DiD so I can't respond to your poll.

 

But it does underscore the silliness of the "17-hour" goal that was created by the developers and somehow has become part of the OFF Culture.

 

If 17 hours was the AVERAGE, and the average is close to the median, then about half the DiD pilots should EXCEED 17 hours.

 

But from what I'm reading on this forum, hardly anyone flying DiD comes close to reaching 17 hours.

 

So how can 17 hours be "average"?

 

Case in point: I always fly the career a real historical pilot so I can compare my sim kills with how well the real ace did (it's my personal little invention, no one needs to feel compelled to do likewise -- or you can if you want to).

 

My Sop Tripe pilot in my current campaign is Capt. Oliver Colin "Boots" LeBoutiller, an American who flew Tripes and Camels with 9 RNAS (later 209 RAF).

 

With 10 kills at the end of the war, "Boots" ranked as a "good" fighter pilot but not a "great" one in the ranks of Bishop or McCudden or Mannock or Collishaw.

 

Here's the kicker:

 

By the end of the war, "Boots" had logged 600 hours of combat flying (he ended his flying career decades later with 19,000 hours total logged flight time).

 

What does that tell you about the 17-hour "average"?

 

It tells me it goes in the same category as the bogus "Realism" percentages: Rubbish.

 

I just ignore it, turn on the labels and fly to make it challenging (I do get shot down too often) but also fun.

 

I retire my pilots at 30 kills when they receive their VC (or I halt the career on the date the real pilot stopped flying).

 

Then I rate my performance on the number of kills versus the number of times I was shot down.

 

And I keep a scorecard. It's a list of ratios (30:5 or whatever of "kills" versus "deaths" during that pilot's virtual career).

 

Not whether I got 17 hours.

 

(I didn't invent my scoring system, by the way. It's the scoring system used in my F16 sim Falcon 4.0, which I have flown for many, many years: Kills:Deaths).

 

Good topic!

 

Tony

Edited April 19, 2009 by tttiger

[Interlocutor 0]

Since starting to fly DiD, my longest-lived pilot got to 25 missions/15.45 hours before dying in a collision with a fellow squaddie . I just now lost another campaign DiD pilot on his 5th mission in Tripes over Ypres in Bloody April, shot down by a flock of Albatri.

 

I suspect that 5 or 6 hours is my average for 1917+ campaigns, but I think that flying N17's in the summer of 1916, with only EIII's for single-seat opponents, one could log some impressive hours if you could avoid collisions.

[Olham 164]

My neighbour, friend and "co-pilot", approaches this sim totally different to me.

Whilst I crave for at least to achieve some 12 confirmed kills (after that, I'd go quieter),

he is flying in Jasta 15, early 1917, when they were elite ranking, but defensive.

He finds it rather easy living there; has contact with enemy only every third flight or so.

When he has, the accompanying wingmen are very capable and useful.

He has 12 hours collected now, and will surely make the 17 h easy.

Me, I always entered the "hot spot offensive bring'em on" Jastas, and really took on every

fight I could get. Resulting in me getting killed after 3 - 5 flights. I never saw any confirmed

kills, cause it was so dark in my coffin.

But now I have entered Jasta 15, too; in July 1917. Hope, this pilot will now last longer.

I'll try my best!

[Winston DoRight 3]

You have to learn when to stay and fight and when to fly away. Reading Richthofens book will give you ideas on how to stay alive longer.

[+Winder 32]

You have to learn when to stay and fight and when to fly away. Reading Richthofens book will give you ideas on how to stay alive longer.

 

And therein lies the rub - in a flight sim the stakes are: a virtual pilot may be scrubbed off the list - when your life is at stake well how different it would be......

 

We cannot account for this in any meaningful way alas.

 

WM

[Hasse Wind 46]

I've had a couple of long-living guys, but they're both dead now. One was blown to pieces by Archie, the other was smashed in a failed landing. At least 90% of my pilots die far too soon.

 

It's hard to live 17 hours in this sim. I'm now again quite close to it with my Jasta 10 pilot, flying the Pfalz. I've noticed that having a weaker plane than most of the opposition forces me to fly extra carefully. With the Pfalz, I find I just can't take any risks like I regularly took in Nupes or Pups. But it's so hard to silence the voice of the hunter...

 

I plan to start a new career as a bomber pilot soon. I've never flown bombers in OFF campaign mode, but if I continue flying carefully like I do now in Jasta 10 I think I should have some chances in reaching the magical 17 hours in a two seater... maybe.

[Rick Rawlings 137]

The quality of your wingman help out a lot in keeping the enemy busy so they don't gang up on you. I religiously check my six and never fly straight for more than a second or two in combat and it serves me pretty well. Collisions, on the other hand, are another story! (See my other thread) :yes:

 

RR

[+Polovski 460]

So how do we make it so you fly with only "1" life? There is the issue. Impossible.

Unless we say "die and we format your hard drive ;) ?"

[+Winder 32]

So how do we make it so you fly with only "1" life? There is the issue. Impossible.

Unless we say "die and we format your hard drive ;) ?"

 

Yeah good one Pol - if realism settings are 100% or more (DiD), and your virtual pilot dies, I format all the HD's in the system?

 

Will look into that!

 

WM

[Creaghorn 10]

And therein lies the rub - in a flight sim the stakes are: a virtual pilot may be scrubbed off the list - when your life is at stake well how different it would be......

 

We cannot account for this in any meaningful way alas.

 

WM

 

that's exactly my philosophy of playing this sim. i try to play it like it's about my life. though it's never going to be that real, but i try all i can to simulate it. my best pilot had more than 60h with 5 kills on DiD because i try to choose when to fight, when to run (toghether with wingmates), as long as i am not forced into a fight. he died because in a dogfight he simply collieded with a wingmate. i don't know how long he would last if the accident did not happen. but that philosophy reflects the real life pilots the most.

[Quoth 0]

Yeah good one Pol - if realism settings are 100% or more (DiD), and your virtual pilot dies, I format all the HD's in the system?

 

Will look into that!

 

WM

 

The other point which is impossible to quantify is experience. Every time you fly you gain experience and if your pilot dies you still retain that experience. :yes:

Be interesting to know how the devs could solve THAT one

 

Cheers

 

Q

[Fortiesboy 3]

Yeah good one Pol - if realism settings are 100% or more (DiD), and your virtual pilot dies, I format all the HD's in the system?

 

Will look into that!

 

WM

 

I don't think anyone should be giving WM ideas like this

 

Now that someone has, who is going to be the brave soul who downloads the next patch.....lol

[Rick Rawlings 137]

I look at it like it is a microcosm of the war. I have my pilots set up on light mission duty, otherwise, even if I could survive that long, I would have to quit my job and devote myself to doing nothing but flying OFF if I was ever going to see the end of the war. I imagine that my pilot is off flying the no-contact, inconclusive missions while I am away. I only take control of my alter ego for the "ones that count". So far, after 4 months, I have 30 kills, which seems about right. If Winder was ever able to completely encapsulate the entirety of flying as a world war one pilot into a super 17,000 gig patch, it probably wouldn't be very fun. I am always watching stuff on the history channel about the old west and my wife says that if I were to ever live in another time, that must be the one I would choose. I tell her no, it is interesting to learn about. To live then would almost certainly suck.

 

RR

[Mr_Dirt 1]

I can only get to 6 to 7 hours per pilot. I tend to fight no matter the odds or where I am over the lines. When you do like this the odds of getting 17 hours are very slim.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

I went with moderately hard. I currently have one active pilot over the 17 hour mark, and he is on his way back from Switzerland after escaping from a Hun POW camp. I had one other that made it to about 20 hours before going west. I don't consider myself a great pilot by any stretch which is why I chose moderately hard.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

[Bullethead 12]

If 17 hours was the AVERAGE, and the average is close to the median, then about half the DiD pilots should EXCEED 17 hours.

 

But from what I'm reading on this forum, hardly anyone flying DiD comes close to reaching 17 hours.

 

So how can 17 hours be "average"?

 

I think the main reason for the severe attrition most of us experience in DiD is that the AI lacks respect for the lethality of combat. Remember, these planes were dangerous toys, born and bred to kill, and they were quite capable of doing so, and rather quickly, too, given the lack of any armor, self-sealing fuel tanks, etc., in their prey. The more realistic the modeling of the guns and DM, the more this will become apparent. The longer you're exposed to this threat, the more likely you are to die.

 

I think real pilots respected this a lot more than the AI does. They all knew that all it took for them to die was to be squarely in the enemy's sights for a single second. 1 bullet, 1 shell fragment in the right place, and they were graveyard dead. And the impression I get from reading every memoir I can find is that the majority of pilots (at least those who survived to write memoirs, and most of the foes the record meeting) were rather circumspect this regard. They didn't like being in big melees because they knew this made them vulnerable. And not just to getting shot, but also to collisions.

 

The impression I get, therefore, is that if there weren't many planes on each side, they more or less paired off and each pair had their fight (or not--maybe 1 guy would run). Then everybody found himself alone and went home. Or if there were lots of planes on both sides, often it was a bunch of minor skirmishing without either side willing to commit to an all-out brawl. That did happen sometimes, but it seems to be the exception.

 

But what happens in the game is that if the AI wants to fight at all, it goes fangs out. This is both friendly and enemy AI. And then it stays in the fight far beyond when the prudent human would call it a day. If it leaves the fight after this, it's only when it's severely shot up and escape is already impossible, no matter how far the numerical odds have swung against it in the meantime. IOW, once the fights starts, it won't end until everybody on 1 side is dead.

 

As a result, everybody involved, both human and AI, is exposed to what seems to me to be rather more threat of bullets and collision than would have happened in real life. It's like the risk of several real fights is compacted into 1 computer fight. In which case, if the guns are realistically lethal, and the planes realistically vulnerable, the odds of dying in any given OFF fight are several times higher than they were in real life.

 

Let's say the odds of dying in a fight in OFF are 3x higher than in a real life. I, of course, have no way of knowing the real answer here, but let's do this for the sake of argument. In that case, the life expectancy of your pilot should be about 1/3 that of a real pilot. And that would mean that all of us who usually die about 5-6 hours into a career are right on average ;).

[hood 2]

Good maths Bullethead and I would say spot on.

[Guest British_eh]

"And therein lies the rub - in a flight sim the stakes are: a virtual pilot may be scrubbed off the list - when your life is at stake well how different it would be......

 

We cannot account for this in any meaningful way alas."

 

WM

 

 

 

Ok, some great points have been made,especially regarding the AI,and perhaps their suicidal ways. Interesting to see, as I have lost perhaps 20 % of my pilots to enemy and friendly air crashes. A byproduct of the above, and certainly something that you just have to adjust to.

 

It seems quite clear, even in these early stages of the POLL, that those who are looking for realsim, at 100% DID, and the 17 hour mark, are going to have their work cut out for them.

 

It has always been my understanding that along with entertainment, realism is top spot, for the OFF TEAM. Given this particular notable goal of the clientele, is it within the realm of the OFF TEAM to provide for 100% DID, and the expectation that an average pilot, ( 1 of 4) will make this goal of 17 hours?

 

Regards,

 

British_eh

[catch 81]

I don't do the 17 hour thing anymore DID or otherwise. Loved it in P2 and became quite obsessive about it crying hopelessly and without shame (and, I must admit, with some wicked enjoyment) into the heaving bosom of Nurse Gladys every time a pilot failed to reach his target (ring any bells with any of you chaps ?) but now spend my time enjoying the beauty of P3 (not just visually) and not caring whether a pilot lives or dies.

 

Besides, I always take a Leica motion picture camera with me these days always on the ready to "roll camera" for that elusive breath takingly amazing clip that you know is just around the corner. So I try to incorporate the beauty that is OFF from various clips into a video format for posterity and the greater good of society. I have no time for 17 hours ..... but then again .... it was/is a great challenge. And not silly at all. Perhaps I should reconsider ?

[+Winder 32]

"And therein lies the rub - in a flight sim the stakes are: a virtual pilot may be scrubbed off the list - when your life is at stake well how different it would be......

 

We cannot account for this in any meaningful way alas."

 

WM

 

 

 

Ok, some great points have been made,especially regarding the AI,and perhaps their suicidal ways. Interesting to see, as I have lost perhaps 20 % of my pilots to enemy and friendly air crashes. A byproduct of the above, and certainly something that you just have to adjust to.

 

It seems quite clear, even in these early stages of the POLL, that those who are looking for realsim, at 100% DID, and the 17 hour mark, are going to have their work cut out for them.

 

It has always been my understanding that along with entertainment, realism is top spot, for the OFF TEAM. Given this particular notable goal of the clientele, is it within the realm of the OFF TEAM to provide for 100% DID, and the expectation that an average pilot, ( 1 of 4) will make this goal of 17 hours?

 

Regards,

 

British_eh

 

I cannot answer this question as its dependant on how the player plays - Olham quoted somewhere that he plays cautiously (preserving his virtual pilots life) but even then I think reality would see him fly and fight very differently.

 

So there is no real solution to this other than for you to lower the 'rating' i.e. the settings if your pilot dies too quickly given your mode of play.

 

I have prepared a patch that allows some small leeway in workshop settings so as to still realise a 100% rating and now the player is allowed to make a few tweaks before the realism goes below 100% - thats the best we can do and again don't get hung up on the number - its just a number.

Full settings is now 120% again.

 

So why the number you ask if its not important? Well I wanted a way to gauge what settings folks are achieving long standing pilots, and or good kill counts - so this gives a relative idea of exactly that - and that is all it is.

 

You will note in the workshops the text on the left that states what has been bypassed - I could add that to the log instead but it consumes too much space - a number is simply convenient.....

 

 

Finally in patch 1.30c (coming soon) the AA ground fire has also been marginalised a bit.

 

 

Best

 

WM

[Siggi 10]

Finally in patch 1.30c (coming soon) the AA ground fire has also been marginalised a bit.

 

 

Best

 

WM

 

That'll be nice, if it'll make ground-attacks a viable proposition (as opposed to a 95% certainty of death).

[Olham 164]

Winder: I have prepared a patch that allows some small leeway in workshop settings so as to still realise a 100% rating and now the player is allowed to make a few tweaks before the realism goes below 100% - thats the best we can do...

 

That's more or less, what I thought to suggest, but now you're doing it already. Great.

 

Another suggestion would be, that for the more defensive Squadrons/Jastas, enemy encounters are less often,

less outnumbering, and no missions over enemy terrain (don't know, if that would be programmable).

 

The rest must be done by the player then. I have created two pilots now, who I will only fly

- wide awake

- when I'm under no pressure and have enough time

- when I'm not nervously keen on a success

 

Also, there are "gunzablazing pilots" (who will have to be "reinstalled" very often).

[Interlocutor 0]

I agree with what BH said above about the murderous intent of AI pilots , and about the effect that has on the lifespans of our own pilots.

 

But I also think there's yet another factor in the short careers of our DiD pilots at least, also raised by BH I think in another thread, and that's the "edge" the enemy AI aircraft have in terms of sighting and detection.

 

I've flown about 50 DiD missions now, TAC-less & label-less, using 7 pilots; one of the 7 got up to 25 missions/15.45 hours). These 7 DiD campaigns include 2 in 1916 (including the 25-mission guy) and 5 in 1917, all Allied. Five of those 7 pilots are dead, two still flying. Of the five dead, one was killed in a collision with a fellow squaddie (the 25 mission guy), the others have all been shot down by enemy a/c.

 

Now in all of those missions, I have yet to see an enemy 2-seater. I have never succeeded in surprising an enemy formation. In those missions where I have encountered enemy single-seaters, they have always had an advantage of altitude or numbers, and often both.

 

I'd been musing on that when BH made a post in another thread, suggesting that enemy aircraft must always have their TACs and labels turned on, and TACs with a full 8-mile radius at that. If this is indeed true (devs?), then naturally the AI flight leaders will choose to avoid combat when at a disadvantage. This would explain why I've never seen enemy 2-seaters; they must be programmed to turn away when first sighting single-seaters at 8 miles out. It would help explain why my summer 1916 N17 French Storks pilot, he of the 25 missions, only saw German single seaters on about 6 of his missions; Fokker EIII's, his only possible German single seater opponent, may often have seen themselves at a disadvantage against N17's and thus avoided combat (or they may have simply been unable to keep up with or climb up to the N17's).

 

So DiD pilots who fly without TAC & labels will almost always be caught at a disadvantage by enemy aircraft, if BH is right about the way the AI is "programmed" to choose its fights. At least, at a disadvantage as perceived by the AI's programming.

 

All of us have read accounts of real WW1 pilots in which they describe how they surprised enemy aircraft unawares? Also, many WW1 aces ran up their scores against enemy 2-seaters; how many of our TAC-less/label-less DiD flyers have ever seen an enemy 2-seater in the air?

 

I love the game, I love its immersiveness, it's been effectively the only game I've played since it came out, and that for 2 or more hours each day. And I can't see that changing anytime soon. But I would be very pleased if, for those of us who like to fly without TAC & labels, Pol/Winder would consider, if it is possible, reducing the effective visibility range for enemy AI pilots to 2 miles or less, to put them on an even footing with us mere mortals :yes: .

 

Now I also agree with what Pol & Winder have been saying about how we human pilots are not as careful with our lives are real-life pilots would have been. But we never seem to get the chance to "pounce", unseen, on an enemy formation when we fly TAC-less & label-less either, so easy kills cannot be had. And I can submit that as a DiD pilot I try to be very careful with my pilots lives, but even then, with a couple hundred cumulative flight hours now, I can't imagine accumulating several hundred in-game hours with one pilot without getting killed, let alone flying throughout the war safely.

 

I guess the question, for me at least, is therre any way to change the AI so that it doesn't always see you far enough away to avoid fighting when you have the advantage of numbers or height?