First impressions

[itifonhom 6]

Hey guys,

after some missions in mid '15, I enlisted a new pilot with Jasta 11 in June '16. Flown 4 missions already, three of them with enemy contact. First found two pushers patroling, got their six without get noticed, pushed the trigger and after two seconds got a jam! Newbie!! Lived to get another mission, met some bombers, rear gunner hit my right wing but managed to land. Next mission found some bombers again, reached them from six bellow, opened fire, they returned fire, right elevator and engine damaged seriously and had to glide back to base ( wasn't that far!). I still got the Eindecker and the life at the Front seems to be hard! What a wonderful simulation!!!

 

 

By the way, makes a difference if a mission ends "successful" or not? Is it of some importance to get all the waypoints and get home alive or it's better to get into the action with the risk of landing somewhere in the Front (better at our side)?

 

I already love this game!!! itifonhom

[Rickitycrate 10]

Iti, it's about survival. The waypoints AFAIK do not matter. If you have to put her down try to do so on our side of the line. Stay alive to fly again, or select pilot never dies, takes away the suspense for me I find. You have a lot of choices you can make regarding the difficulty in the workshop. Fly to your current abilities and have some fun getting used to a particular plane, they're all different to handle and use different tactics for effectiveness. OFF is yours now, fly how you want and have fun. Eventually DiD is really something to try but maybe work your way up to it. Mission successfull or not? If you lived consider that a success and fly again. Pilot never dies setting does prevent having to create a new pilot all the time. Just some thoughts. Did you contact Olham with your Earthly location to be on the OFF map? Please do so. It's nice to have you with us. You know where to come if you need any help. See you in the sky, maybe on your six. Cheers

[itifonhom 6]

That's one reason I call it an experience, there are others.

 

I think you are fully right, I agree 100% with you! On my last mission, given the mistakes I made on my other missions, just when I made my way behind their six hidden below them, I really felt my heart pumping quicker and quicker and my hands sweating. I can't remember any other sim to have that effect to me.

 

Thanks for your feedback uncleal and Rickitycrate, I really feel lucky that my pilot is still alive after the last mission.

 

BTW, are the chlor gas clouds some lightly green tinted "clouds" at no mans land? If yes, I already saw them. This battlefield looks terrible, even in a sim. Some 12 years ago, had the experience to visit the Imperial War Museum at London. The Trenches experience is something I still remember like it was yesterday and something I wouldn't want to live for real.

 

 

itifonhom

[carrick58 23]

Itifonhom: You will find that the sim is representive of the time period of the war. Some things I found besides life expectencly. 1. German a/c will be higher then your a/c and bomb from high altitudes. ( James T.B. McCudden RFC stated that he saw a german 2 seater. bombing from 7000ft and the early german a/c were always higher then his Observation a/c except when he was in one that overflew a german airfield (1915). moreover, the lewis machine gun was not the most accurate nor had long range. Same as the sim. He stated that he could hit an e/a at 300 yards but at 500 yards they were out of range. He also stated that he once fire two drums of lewis machine gun ammo at 2 seaters over 1000 ft away an didnt get a hit. The sim is like that fly a N-11 BeBe and U wont get a lot of hits unless u r close.

 

REF: Flying Fury ( Five years in the RFC) James T.B.McCudden, Doubleday,New York.

[Olham 164]

Iti, you have the right attitude, when you love it, although you get knocked out.

You will get better after some time, believe me.

If you have enough from the Eindecker, or get killed, try the Halberstadt, or even the Albatros DII.

You will be surprised about the difference between all those craft from 1915 (wingwarper)

to 1918 (200 PS SPAD XIII). You invested good in a long-time experience!

[Bullethead 12]

Flown 4 missions already, three of them with enemy contact. ... I still got the Eindecker and the life at the Front seems to be hard! What a wonderful simulation!!!

 

Congrats on living so long in the Eindecker. While not the Most Evil plane in OFF, it's definitely got some seriously bad habits that have killed quite a few folks, usually many times over.

 

Just MHO, but now that you've joined us at the Front, here's BH's $0.02 on the lay of the land. Note that the times are just rough guidelines, but you get the idea.

 

1. 1915-1916

Danger from the enemy is relatively few and far between. Not much flak, few enemy planes, and few planes in flights. To compensate for the relative lack of action, many of the planes will try hard to kill you when you're just flying along minding your own business, and are positively lethal when maneuvered hard in combat. And even then, they have very anemic performance.

 

2. 1917

Medium danger level. Most planes on both sides are pretty safe to fly and quite a few have decent performance, good lethality, or both. Fights are usually larger than before, more common, and more intense, but are still separated by fairly long intervals of calm during a single sortie, during which you don't have to work so hard staying in the air. Also, there's more flak.

 

3. 1918

All planes except the Pfalz fly very well, all are lethal, and there are LOTS of them. Fights tend to be huge (like 40-50 planes per furball) in areas over active ground offensives, and elsewhere they're not much smaller. It's also hard to find any real time to catch your breath because outside the huge furballs are wandering groups of enemies at full squadron strength looking to start another huge furball or join one that's already going. The flak is intense and nearly ubiquitous.

 

By the way, makes a difference if a mission ends "successful" or not? Is it of some importance to get all the waypoints and get home alive or it's better to get into the action with the risk of landing somewhere in the Front (better at our side)?

 

Goint to all the waypoints, patrolling for the required time, and/or destroying the briefed target. Of course, one of your waypoints is getting home, so survival's counted in this.

 

I already love this game!!! itifonhom

[itifonhom 6]

Hi again!

Unfortunately it's over! My fifth mission, enemy air raid over our base, just after take off got shot and although I thought I could crash land, hit harder than I should and my kameraden cried for me!! Already started at Spring '17 with Jasta 8 and Albatros DII. Two machine guns are really better for my poor shooting. Still haven't managed to shoot anything down in Campaign but I will! This sim is exactly as it should be, hard. I play with settings 140 DiD and I love it!!!

 

 

Thanks for all your tipps, it's a wonderful community here, glad to find you guys!!

 

 

itifonhom

[Olham 164]

Itifonhom: This sim is exactly as it should be, hard. I play with settings 140 DiD and I love it!!!

 

So welcome again in the Masochist Club, Iti.

One thing about "scrambles". When enemy craft where over the airfield, the Germans did not do 'scrambles',

because that is almost certain death. Manfred von Richthofen said then: We will meet them again, under better

conditions. I can't imagine, that the Allied acted differently there; so you must not fly scrambles; you can always

go back in the briefing and click "advance time". Then you get another mission.

 

That doesn't mean, that I never fly them. I sometimes LOVE scrambles. When I see, there are 12 Nieuport 17

over my field, and I stand ready with 6 - 8 Albatros DIII, then I can hardly wait to get airborne, to punch them.

But under such conditions, I sometimes die.

That's why I do this: at start, I press "pause" and mark a target with TAC, then I switch through outside views,

until I see my opponents. I click through them and count them. And then I decide, if I break off (press "escape")

or start. Nothing wrong with that, cause in reality, they would have got information like that from the frontline

via telephone; also they had very good scissor scopes, to check who's coming for dinner.

 

Also, I don't intrude far into enemy terrain as a German pilot, cause they didn't do that regularly. Such missions,

I click "advance time", and see what comes next. Still though, I never lasted longer than 40 days so far.

Make the best of it.

[itifonhom 6]

I'm a proud member of the Masochist Club!! And I buy another round!! As I see, there's a lot to learn here and this Forum feels really like the local pub, full with friendly comrades willing to share their battle experience. Amazing!!

 

itifonhom