Hair-raising combat!

[Venator 0]

After a VERY narrow escape in which my flight of 5 tripes was decimated by close to a dozen of Jasta 28's finest, but manged to take down 3 Albatri including Ritter Max von Mueller [see here LINK HERE for a detailed combat report] on landing I hit escape, ONLY TO FIND NO CLAIM PROMPT as the game had failed to log anything past my first few rounds of fire.

 

The game log said "6 bullets fired, 2 hit" and that was all folks. One of the most hair raising experiences I've had, one of the best combats ever, and no 'official credit'. Oh well, it lives on in my memory, and prompted me to write it all down before it became muddled with all the other dogfights to come...

 

This has happened to me before, but not with too much frequency. I was wondering if it is a common occurrence for others.

Edited July 28, 2009 by Venator

[Creaghorn 10]

usually it might fail to get to the claimform when the guy you have shot down is shot at and hit by groundfire when falling, i think the last bullet is relevant who gets the claim

[Venator 0]

Thanks for reply, but that's not what I meant. I must have shot several hundred rounds, saw 3 of my opponents crash and burn at a friendly airfield, then I landed beside the wrecks.

 

The game failed to log any events past my initial brief opening rounds of fire, though the game played on.

 

Is this a crash of the OFF manager? Is this instability common for other players? Or just my install???

[Olham 164]

I never had that happening, Venator. Did you see that "rounds fired" info in the review?

I mean: did the review also only show the beginning, and then failed? Cause that would be a proof,

that the sim really didn't log anything beyond the first shots.

If that was the case, you might send an E-mail to support@overflandersfields.com

And tell any details you know.

 

And please PM me your hometown and country - I'd like to put you on the OFF Pilots map.

 

PS: you can "re-adjust" OFF manager and even CFS3 in "workshop" - but that will erase all pilots.

Edited July 28, 2009 by Olham

[zoomzoom 2]

I actually have had this happen as well. It doesn't happen often. But after hearing your description, it does seem to me to happen after a very intense and harrowing fight. I had a similar experience, a fight that I was just happy to survive by the seat of my pants, and actually downed some enemy in the process, and upon misison close.....no option to report anything. At that point, I just made a mental note (you owe me one game!!!)...and moved on. Just happy my pilots still alive and kicking.

 

ZZ.

 

PS...I didn't think to look at the mission log. Where/How do you do that? If it ever occurs again this may be helpfull knowing what it registered when.

Edited July 28, 2009 by zoomzoom

[Olham 164]

In the briefing room window, at the bottom, you see "review" or "replay" or something like that.

When you click that, you will get a map and a developing line of your flight path.

Every incident/action will now be written as a pop-up, and it continues, when you click "play".

 

It is very useful, to later see, what all happened. It even shows incidents near you; so you may

have had a fight of Albatros against Tripes, but at 13:11 h you read: "German observation balloon

destroyed at ...", or "Roland C II destroyed".

[Venator 0]

Olham is correct about the review, your flight will be plotted, summarized, and played out moment by moment... However, I was a bit 'miffed' by the whole thing happening, so I simply exited the game and played another WWI sim

 

Instead of a claim screen like I hoped, the OFF manager (?) displayed a simple flight log with minutes and 6 bullets fired, 2 hits, etc. when as I said before I fired several hundred bullets. Some aspect of the game, OFF manager, or CFS, or ??? simply stopped logging.

 

Not sure if this is relevant at all, but I could tell my GPU was getting kinda hot (long story, I usually crank up fans in RivaTuner when flying but forgot this time) but that was much later into the combat than when the log stopped.

 

Glad to know this just ain't me.

 

PS: Olham put me down as Washington D.C. though my heart resides north of the border, i.e. originally from Canada home of many daring, and crazy, Cannuck fliers.

[Creaghorn 10]

i strongly believe it has something to do with overheating or something. that was my first thought when you started the thread. or maybe memory overload or somehting related. dunno.

i only once experienced it in all the flight time. after exiting the mission i was in menu at the very same date, like i never flew the mission. and it was when my rig had worked pretty much and long for hours for other stuff before.

[BigJim 0]

usually it might fail to get to the claimform when the guy you have shot down is shot at and hit by groundfire when falling, i think the last bullet is relevant who gets the claim

 

if that's true it should be fixed if possible because it is just silly on the face of it. I know "historically" it happened the shoot down of the "Red Baron" comes to mind, but I think it was the "exception" rather than the "rule".

[Olham 164]

BigJim, historically the claims where often just a matter of luck or coincidence.

And even a well respected ace like von Richthofen lost many of his claims, otherwise he

would be an ace of 120 or even more kills.

So, whenever you don't get credited for a kill, wipe it off, and get on to the next one -

it's all you can do.

[BigJim 0]

BigJim, historically the claims where often just a matter of luck or coincidence.

And even a well respected ace like von Richthofen lost many of his claims, otherwise he

would be an ace of 120 or even more kills.

So, whenever you don't get credited for a kill, wipe it off, and get on to the next one -

it's all you can do.

 

Yeah I have no problem in "losing kills" but I think the routine that decides that in the game is different from the one detecting who killed who in the mission replay. Who caused the catestrophic damage is who should get the credit, so if I shoot his wing off and while he is falling out of the sky archie blows him to bits he was in fact already dead.

 

As for historic claims, I think most of those lost were when these guys went on "lone" missions over enemy territory with no witnesses from a "friendly", hence we get the "hollywood" version of guys landing and cutting the tail number off for a claim

 

Of course as I have stated in other posts most of my flight sim "experience" has been with online stuff as I gave up at home stuff long ago due the AI problems and just recently got back into this at home thing. Someone said and I believe rightly so that I probably will never be happy with AI because as the guy doing BoBII AI stated he left "redout/blackout out of AI" which is a HUGE AI advantage in WWII (too bad to cause I was thinking of buying BoBII and now i won't bother)

Edited July 28, 2009 by BigJim

[Olham 164]

BigJim, you want the AI to be human, but it will probably never be that.

Can't you see, that not only the AI has advantages?

The AI might say (if it could think human way):

that's not fair! He has real eyes, and a brain that can think tricky, nasty ideas - he's far more lethal

than us! And he can study us, and come back to use what he learnt! Unfair, unfair!!!

 

I say: let the AI have advantages - as long as I know them, I will learn to fight them better.

 

I've been flying IL2 1946, and had redouts and blackouts occasionally. I learnt to avoid them. I know,

the AI had them not, but I still shot them down much more often, than they got me.

[Duce Lewis 3]

After a VERY narrow escape in which my flight of 5 tripes was decimated by close to a dozen of Jasta 28's finest, but manged to take down 3 Albatri including Ritter Max von Mueller [see here LINK HERE for a detailed combat report] on landing I hit escape, ONLY TO FIND NO CLAIM PROMPT as the game had failed to log anything past my first few rounds of fire.

Venator, I had the same problem recently on scramble

4 of us vs. every Camel in the RFC

We got clobbered right outta the gate but I managed to fight on

In the end, I guesstimated I got 8 of em, but ...no claim form! :angry2:

 

It's due to an old leftover from cfs3

If you lose your whole flight, cfs3 declares "Goals Completed"

The message is top center of your screen, if you have messages turned on

All data recording stops at this point so no credit for anything

 

A real bummer, and because you only lose the whole flight on the wildest missions ...so that's when it happens!

Doesn't happen on every occasion though

 

Good Luck!

[Bullethead 12]

C'est la guerre. Many times I've thought I've killed a bunch of enemies, and haven't gotten a claim form. Watching the replay, it's usually been obvious that the enemies I shot at were really killed by somebody else. Oh well, I guess I need to make better use of my opportunities.

 

I don't think it's the "last bullet syndrome". I think that it's quite possible to pump a bunch of lead into an enemy and not hit a vital spot, and then 1 bullet from somebody else kills the pilot, starts a fire, ruins the flight controls, etc. When I kill somebody, it's because I inflicted fatal damage, even if somebody else hits him on the way down.

[+Winder 32]

C'est la guerre. Many times I've thought I've killed a bunch of enemies, and haven't gotten a claim form. Watching the replay, it's usually been obvious that the enemies I shot at were really killed by somebody else. Oh well, I guess I need to make better use of my opportunities.

 

I don't think it's the "last bullet syndrome". I think that it's quite possible to pump a bunch of lead into an enemy and not hit a vital spot, and then 1 bullet from somebody else kills the pilot, starts a fire, ruins the flight controls, etc. When I kill somebody, it's because I inflicted fatal damage, even if somebody else hits him on the way down.

 

Yep its the fatal shot that generally counts as to who is getting the kill and remember it counts the same both ways - AI and Player.

 

The OFF manager does not determine who gets the kill, its the CFS3 outcomes data and it is a lot more accurate than what you perceive to have done in the mission.

 

Shooting 100's of rounds does not mean 100's of hits.

 

Finally a comment for Big-Jim - AI is exactly that Artificial - whilst one can make them smarter - and we have made considerable inroads into this, there are many trade-offs to balance, and at the moment we still have finite CPU and GPU power which is also a large function of those trade-offs.

So if you want more 'realistically human' opposition MP is your best bet at the moment... and that may not be with OFF.

 

HTH

 

WM