How do YOU write your claim form?

[Olham 164]

To all pilots: reading most of all your posts, I beagn to wonder, why some of you have a very good

claim/kill ratio, whereas I and some others often have 24 claims with only 7 confirmations.

So I made a poll to find out, how the best claims may be written - I hope it'll work out?

Olham

Edited June 26, 2009 by Olham

[Olham 164]

Please, all who click "another way" / "another expression" - would you show, how you write it? Thank you!

Edited June 26, 2009 by Olham

[Creaghorn 10]

To all pilots: reading most of all your posts, I beagn to wonder, why some of you have a very good

claim/kill ratio, whereas I and some others often have 24 claims with only 7 confirmations.

So I made a poll to find out, how the best claims may be written - I hope it'll work out?

Olham

 

first of all i write the text above the claimform into my claimform. (i,..., currently serving in jasta... claim to have...). it doesn't make the claim more successfull, but looks more realistic if you read it again some time later. besides towns and airfields, i am usually writing everything i experienced and have seen with my own eyes. if i see him descend slowly in a lefthanded turn with a trail of black smoke, i'll note it exactly like this. if he went down out of control in a wild spin, i'll note it. if i can see some colors and markins (what i have seen without external views) i'll note what i have seen. i can not add wich of my wingmen had helped me out because i can't identify him (no labels), but i add that one of them helped me out. in the witnesses area i note down every member of my flight (i noted them previously in my cellphone like a sms so i don't need to remember), possible ground units, observers from ballons, ground personell, if any of them was near.

usually my claims are accepted to about 90%. but i think most important are nearby wingmen.

[Macklroy 2]

1: north west (no hyphen, two words, no caps)

 

2: I do not write the time on any of my claim forms. (usually dont ever bother to look at the clock)

 

3: Enemy craft crashed.

 

4: Altitude, # of enemy, location of scoring rounds (wings, tail section, engine), and location of crash site.

 

 

 

 

My claim forms are pretty boring matter-of-fact reports of the situation. I do enjoy the claim form process, I just don't like to spend more than a couple minutes filling out paper work before i get back up in the air.

 

PS- my three current active pilots are (31 confirmed / 35 claimed), (8 / 10), (4 /5)

[Hasse Wind 46]

I don't write my reports like some novelist (my English isn't good enough for that in any case), but I try to add to them as much information as I think is necessary to get the best results. I write a short description about the events leading to each kill and always try to mention time, place and altitude, how many rounds fired (approximately), who were there to saw it, what happened to the enemy plane when I hit it and what special features the planes had. Since I don't use labels, I don't often know which enemy squadron I was facing (try to find out without labels the differences between British squadrons in the heat of battle!), so that information I leave out when I'm not sure about it.

 

Writing my reports like this has given me a success rate of 70 or 80 per cent, sometimes even higher. But sometimes the claims do get rejected for some unknown reason even though I had witnesses and plenty of information. C'est la guerre! :yes:

[Winston DoRight 3]

My confirmation success of late is 100%. Here's an excerpt directly from my pilot claims.txt file:

 

26/;8/;1918 ;11h;34 ;Flanders ;Boffles ;Patrol Behind Friendly Front Lines ; Flying: SE5a Wolseley Viper. On this day claims: ;3 ;Fokker DVII OAW . ;On our patrol behind friendly front lines to Soncamp Ferme, we engaged 2 flights of Fokker DVII OAW's from Jasta 12. The first flight of enemy planes was already engaged with out Flight 1 so I signaled my wingmen to attack and give whatever assistance they could. I picked out one for myself and began the chase. At about 75 ft distance and at 6,000 ft altitude I shot several bursts into him until I saw a flash of fire. I must have hit his fuel tank or engine because he lost control and crashed into the ground below northwest of Avesnes-le-Comte airfield at 11:49 zulu time. Next I spotted the aces. Hermann Becker was shooting at one of ours so I rapidly got on his tail and fired. He broke off and tried to evade me but I fired again and he began to spin out of control and he also crashed. Next I began to chase Alfred Greven and when I got to about 75 ft distance from him I began firing. I watched as pieces of fabric and wood began to come off and soon he went into a spiral dive and crashed at 11:56 zulu time. His wreckage will be found southwest of Avesnes-le-Comte airfield. Witnessed by: Todd Simmons - Lieutenant Status : Pending ;96

 

Seems a bit wordy? I think it's justified if it helps the "pending" score, so spending an extra 5 minutes after each mission is OK for me. I know the devs don't like to talk about this but it is my experience that the higher the "pending" number, the more likely you are to be confirmed, hence my 100% confirmation rate of late. I believe anything in the mid 80's will get the results you are looking for. I enjoy writing a "mini-novel" each time I get a kill. It's fun to go back and read old logbooks from time to time.

[Burning Beard 14]

I dont do any of it. I put in type and how many and the name of wingman, if I remember it. No description of what happened at all.

 

Beard

[Olham 164]

For "time" and "expression for the kill" we have mostly "another way" in the poll.

Please show us, which way you use.

 

Winston, you seem to be the proof for a lot of data - not necessarily so wordy, though; but that's for the fun, I assume.

 

UncleAl - yes the "Z" key is very useful; I press "pause" and "Z", cause I don't have another ingame watch.

 

Burning Beard - how many do you get confirmed your way?

[Burning Beard 14]

They usually don't live long enough to worry about it. My current pilot has 8+ hours and has one confirmed kill for 11 claims, but he has only been active for 3 days.

 

I have noticed in earlier campaigns that confirmations come rather piecemeal. If this pilot survives long enough I expect to see maybe 3 or 4 confirmations at a time, kind of like a normal bureaucracy works. Heck, in phase two I just made up names of witnesses and got confirmed kills, at least in phase three I try to remember my wingman's name, lol.

 

Beard

Edited June 27, 2009 by Burning Beard

[+Polovski 440]

Type in "I love cheese" and you'll get 100% everytime*, or you can click on the easiest claims setting in workshop ;)

 

(*not really).

[OvS 8]

I type 'craft from (squadron) engaged and shot down (add in condition of craft [flames, broke apart, etc]), then location of general area, etc...

 

And I get denied a lot..... but I am a Stachel, and like my cousin Bruno.... it runs in the family, so I'm used to it.

 

Unconfirmed means UNCONFIRMED!

 

OvS

[Olham 164]

Pol, you seem to be a teaser sometimes - cheese, eyh? Stilton or Cheddar?

 

OvS - when even you have lots of unconfirmed ones, I'm becalmed. Somehow, I seem to be

a relative of Stachel too. And we both know - all our claims where true kills!

[Dej 17]

Location (either Place or, e.g. n miles NE of Place); Time; Nature of Encounter (Spotted and engaged, Attacked by etc.) Altitude (Start and Finish); Type of EA; Approx. rounds expended; Nature of EA demise (flames, spun in, stalled and crashed etc.); Every pilot on your flight who was there, whether they survived to come home or not.

 

Only ever had two claims refused in over twenty-five claims spread across five pilots. But I wonder if the game might be more 'picky' if you get past, say, 10 claims on one pilot.

 

[EDIT] Those two that were refused were on the grounds of lack of witnesses and were claims where I probably lost my wingies before my victory. [/EDIT]

Edited June 27, 2009 by Dej

[+Polovski 440]

Lol Oldham, mm one of those, or was it Gorgonzola arrgg.

[Olham 164]

Hmmmm - I do it more or less like you, Dej, but my pilots mostly have around 30 or more claims,

by some 10 - 15 confirmations. Like OvS rather...

 

PS: the English (real) Cheddar I got with "Ploughman's lunch" was fine. We only get bad copies here.

Edited June 28, 2009 by Olham

[Dej 17]

Hmmmm - I do it more or less like you, Dej, but my pilots mostly have around 30 or more claims,

 

That'll be because you can't resist attacking every enemy machine in the sky, Olham. You really should be flying for the British, Trenchard would be proud of you. More lone wolf missions would suit you, I think, prior to 1917.

[Olham 164]

Dej - I have a (fictional) relative in those days from Polperro, Cornwall, David Marlowe; flying with

10 RNAS, Droglandt, July 1917. Will fly him again soon, but after the holidays I was burning for my

Albatros first. That's love - what can you do? (Lol!)

[Broadside uda Barn 0]

My confirmation success of late is 100%. Here's an excerpt directly from my pilot claims.txt file:

 

southwest of Avesnes-le-Comte airfield. Witnessed by: Todd Simmons - Lieutenant Status : Pending ;96

 

Seems a bit wordy? I think it's justified if it helps the "pending" score, so spending an extra 5 minutes after each mission is OK for me. I know the devs don't like to talk about this but it is my experience that the higher the "pending" number, the more likely you are to be confirmed, hence my 100% confirmation rate of late. I believe anything in the mid 80's will get the results you are looking for. I enjoy writing a "mini-novel" each time I get a kill. It's fun to go back and read old logbooks from time to time.

 

I havent seen that "Pending" number yet on any of my kills for some reason....

[Creaghorn 10]

I havent seen that "Pending" number yet on any of my kills for some reason....

 

 

i think that was done on purpose to remove the pending number, because people began only to pay attention to this pending numbers and that killed the purpose of the whole claimthing. in real they didn't have pending numbers, too so that's why they removed it. personally i like it the way of not knowing how the chances for confirmation will be

[Winston DoRight 3]

I havent seen that "Pending" number yet on any of my kills for some reason....

 

You no longer see it in the logbook. The devs thought we were too fixated on it and removed it in one of the patches. It can now only be seen by looking at your pilots claims.txt file in notepad when out of the game. I occasionally look there to see if I'm writing my claims well enough or if I need to make any changes.

[Broadside uda Barn 0]

so will claims for imprisoned/dead pilots ever be confirmed/denied? Or are they pemanently pending?

[Check Six 2]

so will claims for imprisoned/dead pilots ever be confirmed/denied? Or are they pemanently pending?

 

I have actually received confirmation of a claim as a POW (for the duration, as opposed to those who escape after a few weeks)

[thewoo1 0]

How should the witness line read...please show how you do it.. just plain first and last? remove whats there first? ty

[Check Six 2]

How should the witness line read...please show how you do it.. just plain first and last? remove whats there first? ty

 

The witness line should read something like...

 

"John Smith, Peter Jones, Michael O'Brien, pilots and observers of escorted RE8's from XX Sqn RFC, Ground Crew at Ghistelles Aerodrome"

 

Witnesses should be all the surviving members of your flight (and flight 1 if another flight accompanied you and pilots of escorted craft if any). If you don't know who survived because you don't have the labels on, or you landed and ended the mission before they landed, just put all the names of your flight and the other flights. Also remember if the combat occurred on your side of the lines and near an aerodrome, you can also put down the ground crew or personnel at that aerodrome, also the flight that you escorted (if you did - for example - pilots from escorted RFC xx Sqn RE8's). I'm not sure if that helps you get your claims confirmed, it just looks more convincing in your pilot's log.

 

Yes, remove the instructional line that says "First name, last name, no rank" or whatever it says.

 

Remember to write down the names of your flight and accompanying flight before take off in case of claims. If you are successful in downing an opponent, pause the sim, press "Z" to bring up your info panel. Note the time, and maybe the Lat and Long of the combat. Press "Z" again to remove the info. Press "M" to bring up the map. Zoom in or out with the brackets command ( [ ) or ( ] ), then note your rough location (eg 4 miles NW of Arras). There is a map scale at the top left of this map - saying for example "map is 20NM across"

[Bullethead 12]

I very rarely have claims rejected--it's somewhat less than 10% of the time, although that's probably just luck. Still, I look at the pending number (which is in the text file even if no longer visible in the game), and the lowest I ever get these days is 85, so I figure I must be doing something right.

 

I never put the time of a kill in my claims because I never remember to look at the clock. When I kill somebody, I pause the game and look at 2 things: 1) where I am on the map, and 2) which friendly plane is closest. Then I quickly jot down my position and his name, and go on. I guess having the kill time doesn't matter.

 

For the position, it depends. If the kill lands on a landmark, I say so. Otherwise, I give very rough range and bearing estimates from 2 or 3 nearby landmarks. Typically, it's like "about 2 miles SW of Airfield X and 5 miles NE of Town Y", or "in the German front line trenches just W of Town Z".

 

For the witness box, I use the name of the closest friendly, whether he was in my flight or not. This doesn't seem to make a difference. I do, however, I include the names of all my flight members in the body of the report.

 

I model the text of my claim on the real things. This is a brief outline of the whole sortie with a detailed description of the fight in the middle. These usually start out as "Flying A/C [serial number, gained in external view before takeoff]. Morning OP to Douai, leading B Flight of [pilot names]. Flew to patrol area via

1. ."

 

Then comes the description of the fight, which usually starts out like this: "Near [location], while at about [my altitude], was attacked from above by approximately 6 Albatros D.IIIs. These H/A (or E/A, if it's late in the war) had [detailed description of paint scheme]." What happens next of course depends on the situation, but I usually say such things as this:

 

 

• Engaged one H/A in turning fight down to [altitude]
  
• Received numerous hits from several H/A attacking from multiple directions.
  
• Observer hit H/A with several short bursts and I [saw whatever damage happened]
  
• I fired several short burts at H/A and observed [whatever damage I saw]
  
• After the last burst, H/A went down out of control and was seen to crash and explode on ground approximately [X miles from whatever landmarks]
  

If I see a friendly plane die or get a kill, I include that as well, plus any friendly shots going into the one I'm claiming. I conclude the claim with a brief description of how the sortie ended, such as "reformed my flight and returned to base", or "Made forced landing at [location] due to damage sustained from H/A."

 

Anyway, this works very well for me. In fact, it works so well that sometimes when I get key facts wrong, I still get the kill. For instance, in many fights, all the huns look alike and things swirl around too much for me to keep track of what's really happening. So a number of times, I've thought I've been shooting at the same Hun all along, only to find out in the replay that I actually shot up several of them, and that the one I claimed was actually killed by a buddy while my real victim went down unnoticed in a different location. Or maybe I killed more than I thought, so never filed all the claims I could have.

 

So the lesson seems to be, the accuracy of the little details you report doesn't have to be high. As long as what you say was obviously derived from the actual fight, and you tell a convincing story, the game appears to buy it .