Interesting development.....

[nbryant 8]

First the mission. I was the lead of a flight of 5 1 1/2 Strutters on a short range bombing mission to an airfield just over 20 miles from home. We set out with a flight of Pups pulling escort. The flight to the destination was without incident and we fell in and attacked the airfield. We did well taking down a maintenance tent and destroying surrounding storage crates. As we completed our second pass we were set upon by a flight of 10 DIII's with no sign of the Pups. Both flights began mixing it up in earnest and I was able to roll in behind an Alb with a black fuselage. I racked his crate over and over again and eventually watched him settle in to a grove of tress not far from the airfield we had attacked.

 

 

While chasing him down I was struck by heavy ground fire and my engine began coughing. Realizing I was losing airspeed and would not be able to keep up the attack I immediately turned west and headed for the closest friendly line. As I did I had company and was being strafed over and over from Alb's following me and fighting over who would take me down. In settled at around 100 feet and began tree dancing with them still chasing me hard.

 

 

I battled with the aircraft and did well holding my own as I crossed over the friendly lines and set about finding some help. I passed by a spotter station and the ground guns opened up. It was about then I decided to jump into the gunners seat. When I did the Alb's were about 700 feet behind me. The aircraft immediately went into a serious climb and we began to outrun the Alb's. I wasted a few rounds but they were out of range so I jumped back into the cockpit. The plane began to lose power and having jumped from 150-200 feet up to 3500 while I was the gunner I identified a field and made my way towards it. The Alb's began closing again but I was able to hold them off as I made my way back down to 100 feet and bounced from grove to grove. I quickly realized I wasn't far from my home field and nursed the crate there while still being chased by an Alb. Made it down in one piece and immediately searched for a bottle of cognac.

 

 

Observations:

 

1) When I rolled in on the Alb with Ace markings it did nothing to aggressively get away from me. He more or less maintained a steady state with slight turns and the usual climb to stall and roll, but nothing to run or roll away from my fire. AI skill is set to aggressive. Has anyone else seen much of this?

 

2) My gunner did nothing to fire upon the attacking Alb's. When I was at 100 feet they were in trail at around 300-400 feet but he never opened up. Question is how is the gunner AI set? There is an AI isn't their?

 

3) After being hit the engine was coughing and losing power. When I jumped into the gunners station the AI pilot immediately had all kinds of power and was able to quickly climb a few thousand feet. All the while I noticed the throttle percentage jumping up and down ranging between 40% through 90% throttling up then down and continously cycling like this the entire time the AI was flying. Has anyone else seen this?

Edited January 29, 2010 by nbryant

[carrick58 23]

Good story and great pics. Well Done

[sitting_duck 3]

hmm,,thout i put in a reply,,but guess it didnt take..

 

anyways,,yes,,great story..

 

would love to fly that mission you just did. If you have not flown another campaign mission, it will be in your mission/historical folder as off_camp_mission.xml.

 

if you make a copy and post it, will put it for the MP group to fly.

 

that file gets overwritten everytime you do another campaign session.

[Winston DoRight 3]

I can only comment on the rear gunner portion here as I'm not certain of why the Ace would have acted that way.

 

Did the enemy approach your rear from below? Your rear gun doesn't have much down deflection and perhaps the gunner could not bring it to bear if they were below you. Jump into the back sometime on a calm moment perhaps on your way to the target and try the gun out for yourself. Learn the arc of travel of that gun mount.

 

Depending on the rating of your squadron that you joined, one of 3 friendly AI levels are generated for your mission. If the squadron that you joined has a poor rating rookies are generated. Rookie rear gunners seem reluctant to fire and when they do they often don't hit. Veteran AI rear gunners are slightly better, haven't figured Aces yet. If you'd like to verify this, you can "read" the mission.xml file that's been generated for your last mission with notepad. This will show you, among other things, what AI skill levels you just tangled with.

 

Maybe he's out of ammo?

 

I also believe that it's possible that your gunner has died. I'm pretty sure this is modeled as I flew a mission last night where an Albatros approached me from the rear and a the same altitude. My gunner did not fire even when the Alby was within 100 ft. After taking quite a bit of damage on his firing pass, I jumped into the back and there was 200 rounds of ammo left. I figured he was dead. I'll be doing more testing on this.

[themightysrc 5]

"I also believe that it's possible that your gunner has died. I'm pretty sure this is modeled as I flew a mission last night where an Albatros approached me from the rear and a the same altitude. My gunner did not fire even when the Alby was within 100 ft. After taking quite a bit of damage on his firing pass, I jumped into the back and there was 200 rounds of ammo left. I figured he was dead. I'll be doing more testing on this."

 

that's interesting - surely an adjunct to this should be that if you're gunner's dead you shouldn't be able to F8 into the back seat? I mean, with the best will in the world, dead people do make extremely poor pilots.

[Olham 164]

nbryant, to your point 1):

 

When I fly the Entente side, I always notice, that Albatros do nothing much to evade an attack.

It is dead simple to shoot an Albatros down. Just follow it's plump moves and fire enough rounds

into the craft; simple as that.

An Albatros pilot should at least perform, what we now see with the Nieuports. They where not dumb.

But then of course, the Nupe would have to be made slightly better again, too.

Maybe in Phase 4?

[ConradB 0]

Yes Olham, but it was also noted that the German pilots were, until close to the end of the war, better trained. So in that respect, they should handle those heavier mounts a little better evasively than they do. Plus Germany was fighting a "fire-brigade" style airwar. Send the planes where they are needed the most. So there was a need for better training on the part of the GAS.

[Winston DoRight 3]

............that's interesting - surely an adjunct to this should be that if you're gunner's dead you shouldn't be able to F8 into the back seat? I mean, with the best will in the world, dead people do make extremely poor pilots.......

 

Tally up another holdover from the CFS3 model. When I jumped into the back seat, in a moment of panic and self-preservation, "I tossed his lifeless body over the side and manned the gun myself." Hell, if I can drop my Strutter's bombs without opening the bomb-bay door first, I'm sure you can let me slide on this can't you?

[+Polovski 435]

Winston no need to keep bringing up the minor issue of a bomb bay door. It's always been that way and known. IF we can fix we will but it won't be P3.

 

re the gunner yes the guy was likely dead or wounded but if you think about it jumping to the back seat is hardly reaslistic either.

 

Just bear in mind when all said and done it's a computer program and not perfect by any means. We try.

[sandbagger 1]

Sneeky dropping in the Parasol there Pol

[+Polovski 435]

Lol Sandbagger. Maybe I'll post a bigger pic soon

[Duce Lewis 3]

Great little story there nbryant

I'm not sure on the issues but I was riveted by the drama

 

Sneeky dropping in the Parasol there Pol

This is gonna make 1 Floridian happy!

Good for you Unc!

[Olham 164]

Not only the Floridians - I would love to get a more equal opponent for the Fokker E III!

[nbryant 8]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Will admit the thought of him (rear gunner) having died never crossed my mind, does make total sense though. His avatar was still manning the gun........ The challenge of any AI is finding a balance between realism and fair play. Not sure how you go about capturing both the aggressive kill instinct of an MvR or even the flight for life when it is injured or in serious trouble. A dilemma for sure. Still, the gameplay is amazing and despite a few little things like this OFF is in a league of its own when compaired to those others.

[Winston DoRight 3]

.............re the gunner yes the guy was likely dead or wounded................

That's great to know this is indeed modeled. I'll now not have to wonder why he doesn't shoot back.

[Winston DoRight 3]

...............the thought of him (rear gunner) having died never crossed my mind, does make total sense though. His avatar was still manning the gun........

Wouldn't it be great if in Phase 4, upon the death of your rear gunner, there would appear a few bloody bullet holes in the figure we see when we look rearwards? Then we would really know if he was dead. (Hint.... hint.... dev team)

[carrick58 23]

That's great to know this is indeed modeled. I'll now not have to wonder why he doesn't shoot back.

 

 

The rear gunner does die, I was poping rds at a Roland and he poped back till I got more hits then nothing

I closed and fired close up No return fire till I overshot then the front gun was poping at me as the plane smoked.

[Flyby PC 23]

I find whenever I see something odd or not quite right, so long as I can put some logic, even a bit creative logic to explain it, I'm quite happy go lucky about it.

 

If a pilot doesn't react to my attack, maybe he didn't see me, maybe he was wounded, maybe was reading the map , maybe he was a novice and panic strikken, (is that a word? struck?) maybe he was tired to the bone and thinking about his popsie back at home. I get jumped all the time, taking damage before I ever see my attacker, and I THINK I'm paying attention.

 

My attitude is if it could happen, well, maybe it just did....

 

I think it's called immersion...