Thoughts about P4

[Waldemar Kurtz 1]

Sometimes the small things take a lot of work oddly much more than seems obvious. Mind you saying that everything does ;)

We will try to do the best we can anyway, but nothing is certain to be done depends on how much time goes by too.

 

haha, as soon as I posted that idea I thought "what if the game manager can't recognize the towns anymore and it just causes game crashes on start-up?"

 

saw plenty of THAT with testing RB3d patches.

[Moritz 0]

haha, as soon as I posted that idea I thought "what if the game manager can't recognize the towns anymore and it just causes game crashes on start-up?"

 

saw plenty of THAT with testing RB3d patches.

 

A couple of years ago, I gave a copy of specifications for a WWI flight Sim to the OFF guys with my blessing to use any idea in it. Mind you this was an old document from when I was corresponding and providing data and thoughts for Knights over Europe, a game that died in development. So, some of my thoughts and methods would be dated. The overall concept came from my readings on the subject and the old Milton Bradley 'Broadside' came where the red fleet had to sink the merchant ships and the blue defended them. I hope that P4 would take some of these concepts, if they have been able to revise the game format.

 

Any thoughts on my old scribblings?

17 Hours Concept for KOE Study.doc

Edited July 8, 2010 by Moritz

[Morris 2]

Moritz,

 

Those are great ideas. If its all possible to do it in P4?

 

Great read.

 

M

[carrick58 23]

Oh, I enjoy filling it in too - but the suggestion is to have it available as an option after every mission and let the player decide when to use it:

- French flyers = only if you observe a the crash

- German flyers = only if you observe the crash

- American flyers = only if you observe an enemy plane lose altitude

- English flyers = whenever you see an enemy plane

 

French flyers= Whenever U see any plane in the sky.

[Moritz 0]

Those are great ideas. If its all possible to do it in P4?

 

Great read.

 

 

Thanks! Remember, the air forces cannot win the war. All 'advances' brought on by success of 2 seaters are tactical (e.g. artillery barrage, or successful barrage due to spotters). Also, like the real war, your side may have 2 seaters up the same time you are hunting theirs, or you may be in a 2 seater. Like RB3D, I would like to have other action aking place simultaneously and you, AI or if on line, oter MMP players may choose you course of action.

 

There elements in IL-2 series I like, the skin selction and sharing method and the mixing of AI and MMP players in the same mission. So imagine an on line game with say 30 live pilots involved and maybe another couple of dozen AI planes in the mix as well!

[Bandy 3]

...the first and foremost immersion killer is the "bloodthirsty animal" behavior of the AI. I am not talking about aggressiveness, but persistence of the interception. The reason why every dogfight eventually becomes a bloodbath, is because the AI won't settle until it sees it's enemy hit the ground. ...

 

Mentioned this some time ago, and suggested that if possible some code-based morale check challenge be implemented, i.e. if the odds were against one side they would turn tail and run 1 out of 2 times (well, that would only work for the German and French sides, mad dogs and Englishmen being one-and-the-same... ), or have a morale check if the AI flight leader was shot down, or a certain percent of aircraft in a flight were lost. Of course this may not be possible given the code environment of CFS3.

 

AND I have to agree with almost everyone else, the in-game map is terrible and does not reflect what is seen from the cockpit. Printing off real-life maps and using them is all fine and fun, but real-life maps don't reflect the in-game in-cockpit environment any more than... well you know.

[themightysrc 5]

"Mentioned this some time ago, and suggested that if possible some code-based morale check challenge be implemented, i.e. if the odds were against one side they would turn tail and run 1 out of 2 times (well, that would only work for the German and French sides, mad dogs and Englishmen being one-and-the-same... ), or have a morale check if the AI flight leader was shot down, or a certain percent of aircraft in a flight were lost. Of course this may not be possible given the code environment of CFS3."

 

If AI can fight aggressively, I'm sure they can be programmed to scarper aggressively!

 

I entirely agree, and that was more or less one of the reasons why I welcomed the HitR AI changes. I'm obviously not good enough to bag 1/2 dozen enemies in one combat, as others clearly can, but I would have thought that a truly realistic AI would lead to - at the very best - one or two victories most of the time. If you check out the service records of real WWI pilots, they accrued kills slowly, and over dozens or hundreds of hours. OFF, whilst still the best there is available, is still arcadish in this respect. If I fly in 1917, I can expect to fight every time I do so. Very few enemy flights will avoid combat. What's more, I can expect to encounter these seeming daredevils more or less every flight. I don't believe that this is realistic, even if it makes for an exciting game - which is perhaps a stronger motivation for the OFF chaps.

 

That's not meant to be prejudicial in any way, BTW, but simply a recognition that a game that genuinely mirrored WWI in the air, with lots of quiet patrols where the enemy flee (possibly unseen) or are never encountered would not be a top selling game. People, understandably, buy WWI air sims in order to fight enemy aircraft, rather than to relive in absolute detail the tedium (and terror) of the times.

 

Incidentally, if any OFF peeps are reading, and without giving too much away to them, can you tell us whether any additional planes for P4 will be based upon historical usage (ie, the numbers in which they appeared at the front) or upon some other criteria?

 

Cheers,

Si

Edited July 8, 2010 by themightysrc

[carrick58 23]

It seems the War depended upon the lone Recon or Arty adjusting Aircraft. We need more 2 seat aircraft armed and unarmed.

[Moritz 0]

Any screen shots up from P4?

[Dej 17]

Me, I'm not going to make any suggestions, whether they be daft or brilliant. If any of the great ideas posted above are to be implemented I want them in THIS sim first. So, like the developers I'll play it close to my chest and if I think of something REALLY good I'll maybe drop Pol, Winder or Shredward a line... not that I'm paranoid or anything... even if everyone IS saying so. Besides, I quite like the idea of the goodies in P4 being a complete mystery... 's more like Christmas!

 

SHH! The walls have iPhones.

[Hellshade 110]

"Mentioned this some time ago, and suggested that if possible some code-based morale check challenge be implemented, i.e. if the odds were against one side they would turn tail and run 1 out of 2 times (well, that would only work for the German and French sides, mad dogs and Englishmen being one-and-the-same... ), or have a morale check if the AI flight leader was shot down, or a certain percent of aircraft in a flight were lost. Of course this may not be possible given the code environment of CFS3."

 

If AI can fight aggressively, I'm sure they can be programmed to scarper aggressively!

 

I entirely agree, and that was more or less one of the reasons why I welcomed the HitR AI changes. I'm obviously not good enough to bag 1/2 dozen enemies in one combat, as others clearly can, but I would have thought that a truly realistic AI would lead to - at the very best - one or two victories most of the time. If you check out the service records of real WWI pilots, they accrued kills slowly, and over dozens or hundreds of hours. OFF, whilst still the best there is available, is still arcadish in this respect. If I fly in 1917, I can expect to fight every time I do so. Very few enemy flights will avoid combat. What's more, I can expect to encounter these seeming daredevils more or less every flight. I don't believe that this is realistic, even if it makes for an exciting game - which is perhaps a stronger motivation for the OFF chaps.

 

Cheers,

Si

 

The challenge, I believe, is that those two desires work against one another. If you make the AI able to run a morale check and "run away" (which is definately more realistic), then you end up having a bunch of easy kills because they can't really defend themselves well as they fly straight away. Your kill scores go up fast.

 

I'm thinking out loud off the cuff here, but perhaps the best way to keep kills from going up too quickly would be to have a "Dead is Dead" button in the P4 Workshop. When you select it, it automatically changes a number of settings in the workshop for maximum simulated realism. Turns off Unlimited Ammo and Fuel. Sets Claims to Normal. Gun strength to Normal. Gun accuracy to Less Accurate. It should also disable TAC, Heads up Displays, Z commands, warp and even zoom in and out views. (I know they could use binoculars but obviously they weren't using them while in combat in order to get a better look at their foes).

 

In any case, whatever the Devs and perhaps the "DiD" crew deems to be the most realistic that can be simulated (of course nothing is going to be perfect) is what everything changes to once you select that button. Changing any of the DiD auto-select options will automatically unselect the DiD option in the workshop. Now you can't see enemy planes on radar and you can't zoom in and out far in the cockpit view to be able to detect enemy planes. That is going to drop scores considerably. No warping that auto-unwarps whenever EA are within 4 miles of you to alert you to an enemy presence. You have limited fuel and ammo, no aids of any kind and if you crash, you are pretty much guaranteed death of the pilot. My guess is that the scores would remain pretty low under those kind of circumstances for most pilots. Put the AI on Less Aggressive and I bet your scores will be low and grow only over considerable time indeed. The AI of two seaters in particular probably needs to be addressed in P4 so that they are not such easy kills, as well.

 

Anyone in the DiD crowd care to weigh in on what kind of kill tally you normally get to before a pilot dies?

 

Hellshade

Edited July 13, 2010 by Hellshade

[Hasse Wind 46]

Like I've said many times, the overly large kill numbers result from two things: 1) Terminator AI, 2) Terminator players. What I mean by this is that the AI doesn't know when to stop, but neither do many players, so when everybody is after everybody and fights to the last man and bullet, we see in OFF results resembling the final months of the Pacific War, when hordes of Japanese aircraft flown by badly trained and inexperienced pilots, were shot down by the hundreds and yet they just kept coming again for more bloodshed. With such aggressiveness, the relatively small air forces of WW1 would have wiped out in a few weeks.

 

The devs can do nothing to human behaviour, but hopefully the AI can be improved in P4. But if somebody wants to reduce his kill numbers, he needs to fight less, turn off all help texts and other such things, and try to roleplay a WW1 pilot, who maybe wants to live more than to die for a piece of coloured ribbon.

 

I always fly for hours; the promotions, awards and kills will all come eventually, if my pilots manage to stay alive long enough.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

As a DiD campaign flyer I will give my input on this, seeing as how Hellshade asked for such flyers to "weigh in".

 

I do not use any in-sim aids of any kind. No TAC, no labels, nada. I also do not use warp, and only very rarely will I use the time accelerator key strokes, (usually when I have misjudged how much real time I have left before I need to be somewhere, and must get back to my home drome ASAP). I also do not use the zoom-in feature. I fly OFF using nothing more than what our WWI counterparts had at their disposal, and that goes for the in-sim map as well, (I fly with the "paper" maps available in the downloads section). Because I do not have any equipment or instruments other than "EyeBall 20-20" to find and ID aircraft, my engagements and kill numbers are considerably lower for the number of hours flown, and therefore are closer to the Great War averages. I also have to spend more time trying to stay in formation and not getting lost, which also takes away from hunting about for EA. Another thing I do is fly with clouds on "5" so that the AI cannot see through them, which further lessens attacks. One "trick" I do use is to fly about a hundred feet or so above my flight, but still in my "slot", as this allows me to sometimes be the first to see the AI that are trying to jump us.

 

Once in a fight, I do not chase the AI down more that a couple hundred feet. If they keep diving I pull up and engage a different target while keeping an eye on the one who just dove away to see if he is trying to climb back into the fight. I do not give up alt if I can avoid it, and I will break off from a long fight if we are getting pulled too far over the lines. If at all possible I try to keep enough height to glide to the safe side of the mud in the event I should conk out. My average in the campaigns in a "busy" sector is to make "ace" status with about 50 flying hours on the clock and around 8 total claims, (with 5 confirmed).

 

Hope this info is of some help.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

 

.

[Hellshade 110]

Thanks Lou,

 

As I suspected, while nothing is going to be a perfect simulation, simply denying ourselves all the little extra "convienences" (warp, TAC, zoom, etc) goes a long way towards bringing the kill tally down. Yes, the AI is "Bloodthirsty", but as often as not, so are the player pilots they are facing. If it's kill or be killed, one could argue the AI is making the rational choice to fight to the death.

 

Hellshade

[nbryant 8]

My twist on getting the most of my OFF experience.

 

I only have a 23" LCD and wingman j-stick. No TrackIR, though that is a future need. What I do is fly lead with TAC and gauges off using the game map to nav to my destination. Depending on the mission I will set the TAC to reflect on that visual, i.e. if I am attacking an airfield I set it to airfields, as I am orbiting my field gaining altitude then turn it off. As I approach my target I will open the TAC (and because I have it set to only show my mission objective type I see nothing else) and select my target so that I can signal the flight to attack. Once they roll in I close the TAC. The rest of the time I do bounce between cockpit and external view using it as my version of TrackIR. I look for other aircraft or signs of flak. If I see aircraft I will either wait or engage depending upon mission and location and once I am close will try to zoom in to verify who they belong to. If I.D.'d as the enemy I will engage and once close enough will pause, open the TAC, and assign aircraft for my flight to engage, then I roll into the melee. I have found that this does limit my engagments but does keep me on my toes, and when I do encounter another flight I am selective about choosing to attack or not based upon mission objectives, aircraft condition or advantage.

 

One last thing I do to add my own layer of realism. Should I not make it home and land my crate in one piece I will approximate my distance from my own airfield and apply a one half day rule for every ten miles I am from home. This is the time I apply to advancing time until my next flight. I consider it recovery and travel time trying to make my way home. Should I come down hard but sustain no indicated injuries I add a day to the above. If I do sustain an injury in which the game doesn't impose any R&R I will add another day. Here though I maintain some flexibility. As an example on an earlier flight my SPAD burst into flames around 3000 ft and I was able to bring her down comfortably. The game brought me home and I was scheduled to fly the next sortie 3 hours later. Doesn't seem right to me. So I imposed a 7 day time advance, in addition to 3 days for being close to 60 miles from home, to simulate have recieved first and second degree burns being treated.

 

Just a rough idea and as I keep playing I will keep looking for additional homegrown ideas to try and add to the realism and immersion level.

Edited July 14, 2010 by nbryant

[Morris 2]

About the kills in P3.

 

Even if you shoot down only one EA per flight its 21 kills in a week during a Full DID campaign. I only fly DID campaign with Olham and the rest. That's still very high but usually you will also see ur ass if you hunt down all aircraft.

 

In P4 there needs to be more ways of losing ur pilot which will help to even out the scores.

 

If you are in a tight turn with a ALB fighter you will lose a wing and many times the OFF manager outcome is not death or disaster.

[Creaghorn 10]

.

 

As a DiD campaign flyer I will give my input on this, seeing as how Hellshade asked for such flyers to "weigh in".

 

I do not use any in-sim aids of any kind. No TAC, no labels, nada. I also do not use warp, and only very rarely will I use the time accelerator key strokes, (usually when I have misjudged how much real time I have left before I need to be somewhere, and must get back to my home drome ASAP). I also do not use the zoom-in feature. I fly OFF using nothing more than what our WWI counterparts had at their disposal, and that goes for the in-sim map as well, (I fly with the "paper" maps available in the downloads section). Because I do not have any equipment or instruments other than "EyeBall 20-20" to find and ID aircraft, my engagements and kill numbers are considerably lower for the number of hours flown, and therefore are closer to the Great War averages. I also have to spend more time trying to stay in formation and not getting lost, which also takes away from hunting about for EA. Another thing I do is fly with clouds on "5" so that the AI cannot see through them, which further lessens attacks. One "trick" I do use is to fly about a hundred feet or so above my flight, but still in my "slot", as this allows me to sometimes be the first to see the AI that are trying to jump us.

 

Once in a fight, I do not chase the AI down more that a couple hundred feet. If they keep diving I pull up and engage a different target while keeping an eye on the one who just dove away to see if he is trying to climb back into the fight. I do not give up alt if I can avoid it, and I will break off from a long fight if we are getting pulled too far over the lines. If at all possible I try to keep enough height to glide to the safe side of the mud in the event I should conk out. My average in the campaigns in a "busy" sector is to make "ace" status with about 50 flying hours on the clock and around 8 total claims, (with 5 confirmed).

 

Hope this info is of some help.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

 

.

 

lou, that's exactly the attitude i have . your post could also have been from me. no binoculars or labels on etc. if try to identify the enemy only by looking at the skin. also never chase down more than couple hundred feet. firstly, because i never want to lose my advantage of height, especially when others are around, and secondly because it would turn into a more or less two dimensional fight. also with earlier AC they don't know how to behave at low altitude, so that would be too unrealistic and easy killwrapping. my best one had 400hours with 12 or 13 kills. also i have rather my honor system then the manager. when i get wounded and i hear my alter ego beeing hit, i throw two dices where the number tells me how long my pilot is hospitalizied. when exploding in the air or crashing badly in flames, my pilot is dead. no matter what the manager says. although i use warp as a "regroup tool". since the fights are always to death, i stay in the melee for some minutes and fight, and when not beeing in immediate danger anymore, i leave the area to the point i can warp. then my squad is regrouped again and so is the squad of the enemy. so it's like both fights are seperated again without complete terminator results.

[Olham 164]

Polovski: ...but if you fly Brit there's nearly always someone above you anyway.

 

Not only for the Brits, Pol - I hardly ever find myself the highest flyer on German side; there will always be some S.E.5a or SPAD XIII safely above.

 

I don't really understand that complaints about the waypoints.

To reach a certain altitude WITH your wingmen near you, you need them.

You can cut that bit, by either using "warp", or by leading your flight and press "rejoin";

or a third way:

you activate TAC, press "W" repeatedly, until the blue line shows the flight path to the first real waypoint

(wait until all craft are airborne; it won't work earlier);

then open the inflight map, and press "X" for "warp", but place your fingers over "Control" and "X", and stop

warp shortly after. You may now have reached the altitude, without doing all the way by warp.

 

If all this is still not right, cause you want it more realistic - well, then you can only perform all the climbing

spirals, as the real pilots also had to do.

Edited July 14, 2010 by Olham

[themightysrc 5]

" I do not give up alt if I can avoid it, and I will break off from a long fight if we are getting pulled too far over the lines."

 

Bravo Lou - yours and subsequent posts were happy reading for me. I do wonder though, how you manage to figure out how you're too far over the lines if you don't use the map key?

 

I've liked what I've read this evening on how one should fly as per genuine WWI standards. Obviously, we're not all going to get there at the same rate. For example, I still use TAC, and, I'm a bit ashamed to say, the F5 based speed/height/climb indicators, although I know I shouldn't. That's probably just me being lazy WRT setting up my Trackir profile correctly! Even with all the aids I'm using, I still find OFF a complete bastard to survive in, but I guess I'll have to accept one day that I'm simply a rubbish pilot and a terrible shot.

 

Actually one thing that's occurred to me that does make my life harder, in relation to TAC, is that I downloaded somebody's mod which (a) never shows red/blue colours for friends and enemies, and (b) only fades in the onscreen name of squadron and plane type when you're pretty close in. I wish I could recall who did that mod - it really should be standard in OFF, or at least an option through the Manager screen!

 

Hey ho. Time to go off and do some work, but I think I'll try to combine it with a bit of OFFing. Incidentally, there's a thunderstorm outside - lashing it down and lightning galore. Anyone ever seen this in OFF? I recall seeing it in IL2, and frankly it rather s**t me up, as I hardly had control of my bf109 in the best of weather!

 

Cheers,

Si

[Hasse Wind 46]

 

I've liked what I've read this evening on how one should fly as per genuine WWI standards. Obviously, we're not all going to get there at the same rate. For example, I still use TAC, and, I'm a bit ashamed to say, the F5 based speed/height/climb indicators, although I know I shouldn't. That's probably just me being lazy WRT setting up my Trackir profile correctly! Even with all the aids I'm using, I still find OFF a complete bastard to survive in, but I guess I'll have to accept one day that I'm simply a rubbish pilot and a terrible shot.

 

 

You don't have to feel any shame about the way you play OFF - nobody should. Full-DiD is just one way of enjoying this excellent sim, it isn't any more correct or better than some other way. Everybody should play OFF just like they want. One of the best things about OFF is its excellent workshop that let's people choose from a variety of options that best suit their style. I hope none of this will be lost in P4.

 

DiD can be a lot of fun, but often it's so damn frustrating that I don't want to fly it every day, all the time. Very time-consuming too, especially when you are in a 2-seater unit.

 

There's also the fact that no matter how big screens and other helpful things (the most important of which is TrackIR) we use it's never going to be the same as sitting in a real cockpit and actually flying and looking around. We see less than real pilots, and lack their situational awareness. So I wouldn't say using TAC is totally unrealistic, as long as it's configured reasonably. Maybe something the devs could look at for P4, if possible? (CFS3 limitations are there, of course...)

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

Si, I agree with Hasse Wind's previous comments. You should fly OFF in a fashion that you find enjoyable and challenging. Also, to answer your question about knowing when I am close to being too far over the lines to glide back with a dud engine, that's a matter of practice. I try not to lose sight of the front lines during a fight, because once that has occured I am definitely too far away to glide back, no matter how much alt I have. Most of the OFF planes will handle a very shallow glide angle with a dead stick, and if you have around 10,000' of alt, and the wind is not against you, you should be able to glide at least five miles, and usually a lot more than that. On one occasion I was able to glide my Strutter for nearly 30 miles with a slight wind at my back, starting from 14,000'.

 

There is also a learning curve when it comes to using the "paper" maps, but once you have your AO sorted out it really isn't that tricky at all. I find it a lot more immersive not relying on the in-sim map and little plane icon, but then I am a glutton for punishment.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

 

.

[Hasse Wind 46]

 

There is also a learning curve when it comes to using the "paper" maps, but once you have your AO sorted out it really isn't that tricky at all. I find it a lot more immersive not relying on the in-sim map and little plane icon, but then I am a glutton for punishment.

 

 

For me it's always a small triumph when I don't get lost on my way to the grocery store. Needless to say, I would have been a pretty miserable WW1 pilot.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

I don't have an issue finding my way to the grocery store, HW. But I have been known to stand in the aisle staring at the shelves for endless minutes, muttering to myself, and wondering what the Hell I came to the store for in the first place.

 

 

.

[Hasse Wind 46]

I don't know if somebody has already mentioned this in some thread, but would it be possible to have different kinds of ammunition included in OFF P4? If nothing else, incendiary bullets would make a nice addition for those balloon busting missions, and if we get an airship or two some day in OFF, the incendiaries would be useful for lighting some fires there, too.

[Hellshade 110]

I don't know if somebody has already mentioned this in some thread, but would it be possible to have different kinds of ammunition included in OFF P4? If nothing else, incendiary bullets would make a nice addition for those balloon busting missions, and if we get an airship or two some day in OFF, the incendiaries would be useful for lighting some fires there, too.

 

Oh good idea! Of course if the other side is using them too, that could make for some very short pilot life spans.

 

Hellshade