1918(3) MOD

[Bletchley 8]

Available soon, from here: http://combatace.com/files/category/353-maps-missions-and-campaigns/

 

This is the final date-mod, covering August-November 1918. New missions for two-seater pilots include spy-drops (the elusive 'Beatrice') and supply-drops (British only). At the beginning of August the initiative passed back to the Allied armies. In the British sector Haig was planning an assault on the Amiens front - an attack by the British Fourth Army and French First Army, with massed tanks and aircraft to replace the long preliminary bombardments of the previous year. Air activity was increased on all British sectors, to conceal the point of attack and push back German recon. aircraft from the front. Bomber squadrons, heavily escorted, were tasked to attack airfields and rail centres - activity that was to be strongly, if selectively, opposed by large numbers of German fighters flying in groups of 20 to 40 aircraft, above the low-flying two-seaters on ground attack, counter-battery and contact patrols. The British and French offensive was launched on 8th August, concealed by a heavy ground mist. The German Army was taken by surprise, and Allied forces advanced up to 8 miles on the first day. The British two-seaters concentrated on contact patrolling, counter-battery work and bombing behind the lines, whilst the fighters were used for ground attack and close offensive patrols. By 11th August, however, German resistance and reinforcements had brought the Allied attack to a halt. The British and French armies had advanced 12 miles. At the end of August another British and French assault was launched - this time, towards Bapaume with an assault to capture the Arras-Albert railway line along 33 miles of front, and a French assault between the British sector and Soissons. The aim this time was to overwhelm German forces and drain them of the capacity to counter-attack by attacking along a wide front. Bapaume fell on the 29th August, Peronne on 1st September. This sustained assault forced the Germany Army to retreat back from the Drocourt-Queant line to prepared positions further back, with Lens abandoned on 3rd September. On 12th September US forces launched at attack on the St. Mihiel salient, which was captured after just two days of fierce fighting. This was followed by a lull in the fighting, as preparations were made for the final Allied assault to break through the Hindenburg Line. Air fighting was intense throughout this whole period, and up to the end of October. The assault was finally launched with an attack towards Cambrai on the 27th September, followed by an attack in Flanders between Dixmude and St. Eloi on the 28th, and on the Hindenburg Line between Cambrai and St. Quentin on the 29th. By the beginning of October the Germany Army was in retreat, in almost all areas, although the air above the battlefield was still being strongly contested by the German fighter wings. On the ground, however, resistance was now crumbling fast, and German columns were in retreat along the roads back to Germany....

 

Bletchley

[gaw 5]

B............bless you............these are great......can't believe you covered the entire spectrum of the air war. I've no idea what you did but your work has injected a whole new life into my OFF. Only one disquieting caveat is that the AI seem dumber than usual......I can leave a flight of 5 to deal with the last bad guy and they're still swooping around impotently while I'm headed home out of bullets...I'd NEVER have lasted this long for real....or in the original OFF/HITR...........anybody else want to weigh in on this......nobody came home with a kill score of 5 or 6 regularly. If the immutable cold absolutes of OBD could be married to your mission/opponent variety........I'd believe it. I'm not THAT great a pilot. Work in progress I hope.......THANK YOU!!! gaw

[Bletchley 8]

Hmmm...Not sure why this should be, if it is. I only changed the mission types and the flak effects, but this might have had an unintended effect on the AI (?). I know that when HPW brought out his first damage mod this effected the OFF dice-roll-on-death setting, somehow, to produce player-pilots that could not be slain - even though he was only changing aircraft files. So I guess it is possible that these date-mods have done something similar, but to the AI this time (?).

 

Bletchley

[Olham 164]

I had the impression on my last mission with yout 1918 (1) mod, that the enemy AI behaved

like the "passive AI" we first received with BHaH. Although in "Workshops" my setting is on

"hiastorical", which should be "aggressive" in 1918.

It was not really bad though - the SPAD XIII remained higher most of the time and were hard

to get at. Still though, they also performed attacks.

I will try more over the weekend, and report.

[Bletchley 8]

I will be away until 16th now, so I won't be able to respond to any questions until then. But will catch up on my return, so do please report anything odd like this - also, on your impressions of the flak settings now. Thanks :)

 

Bletchley

 

There may be some link between the mission type selected and the AI aggression settings, so in fiddling with these mission type settings I may have unintentionally introduced some less aggressive AI pilot behaviour... I guess the AI might be more focussed on the mission 'task' now than air combat ... just a thought.

Edited April 8, 2011 by Bletchley

[gaw 5]

who knows.....probably no link at all. These are great fun to scoot around in anyhow.........cheers!

[Guest British_eh]

Hi there,

 

As I have been away it appears that Bletchley has been enormously busy taking our SIA-RSS parameters and mating them with his works. His being away will let many of you test and pursue what may need adjusting. With regards to the AI issue, setting on Aggressive for any time period after 1915 would be reasonable, but I will check out my resources. Another fix is changing the AI to be Scout/Bombers such as the Sopwith Tripe is categorized. I did this with the Sopwith Strutters on my last campaign and they were much better at participating in a scrap on the way home. The file is in ..................can't remember now but I know Bullethead has made such changes so check his threads or drop him a PM.

 

Cheers,

 

British_eh

[gaw 5]

Yikes....I'd no intention of rolling out the guns on a mere supposition....and I may be entirely mistaken. Not having had the time to load the mod....fly, unload the mod....fly..... across a measurable period of time to compare the two.....I haven't a leg to stand on. If on the other hand my vaporings put a spotlight on an issue......then I'll happy to be the catalyst to change.......for these mods of B's are great fun. I'm in the awkward position of wishing to have my clock cleaned more often by smarter bad chaps and at the same time unsure how to help them to do so other than to lollygag in front of their guns. Wonder what the dev's are making of these mods???....I've not heard a word...or perhaps I've not paid inadequate attention to the posts. Cheers All...........

[Javito1986 14]

I haven't heard them talk about this one in particular, but the Devs like the mods our guys make. They just sometimes caution about changing some parameter that unknowingly alters another one entirely

[Buddy1998 2]

Hey all,

 

Since I'm a beginner in flight sims, I liked to have the messages "no more goals" and "mission successful" whenever I completed a mission. So, I had some spare time and tried to adjust the mission files.

 

I tried every which way - in my limited knowledge - to fix the waypoints issue, but was unsuccessful. The waypoints seem to mimic the "free flight missions" in some way. Anyhow, I adujsted each file (e.g. GermanyFighterTypes1916.txt ) from a lone wolf mission to default ones while preserving the mission types and numbers. So, now I fly with formations with correct waypoints and "historically accurate" mission types.

 

I do miss the lone wolf missions A LOT! But I don't mind the trade off since now I know when my missions are successful.

 

Also, I'm starting the campaign in 1915 (~20 hours flying time), so I still didn't come accross any dogfights yet to judge the aggressiveness of the Enemy AI.

 

Overall, I like the "feel" of these missions and they do add to the immersion factor of the game. Kudos to you Mr. Bletchley

[Olham 164]

One question, Bletchley:

is it possible to have - say - one mod of 1916, one of 1917 and one of 1918 active in JSGME,

as they are not for the same period of time?

[Bletchley 8]

"is it possible to have - say - one mod of 1916, one of 1917 and one of 1918 active in JSGME,

as they are not for the same period of time?"

 

One from 1917 and one from 1918 are probably OK, as only the mission types change - for 1915 and early 1916 the flak file also changes, so you might find that the Allied flak artillery are using the less effective shrapnel shells into 1917/18 if you have both 1915 or early 1916 'active' at the same time as 1917 and 1918. Not sure if there would be any other problems - I havn't tried to keep more than one 'active', and so I would generally recommend just one of these date-mods be 'active' at any one time. But you could try, see what happens :)

 

Bletchley

[Olham 164]

Okay, thank you, Bletchley. I only asked, cause I may sooner or later forget to change,

 

when I change pilots. Maybe I should have only one pilot, and concentrate on him.