Where are the Huns?

[33LIMA 972]

Having started to fly RFC more regularly, and being only really interested in campaigns, I'm finding that RFC ones seem to consist almost exclusively of long cross-country flights with enemy aircraft rarely, more often never, seen. A few others have posted similar problems (eg the 'Boring April' thread on the Help forum). So it's not just me, and not just my install.

 

I generally don't use the TAC/'radar' or labels and when I do use the latter for nav or a quick 'scan' I have the range set to 1 mile. I like flying 'all aids off' since learning how much more immersive this feels to me, flying First Eagles. In OFF I have to turn the 'radar' on to use padlock and I miss the lack of stall warning as the CFS3/OFF stallsound is inaudible; but I generally manage OK, steering clear of using the on-screen aids, at least when flying German. The OFF FlakMod helps me locate targets better by producing tighter & faster-appearing flak burst patterns, but no more lethal.

 

However, 'Archie' is rarely much help when flying RFC, especially over the enemy side of the lines, and the lack of 'trade' in RFC campaigns is making these increasingly tedious. Not good.

 

First problem is that - as far as I can see - planes in OFF are only rendered at all at about a mile and a half. This varies a bit, depending whether you are in cockpit view or the hateful CFS3 'fisheye lens' wide-angle external view, but it's still quite a short range - double that, say 2-3 miles, would be better. So they are therefore invisible until you are quite close. I should not have to use zoom - it's cetainly inconvenient and it's not realistic either; the idea of WW1 pilots scanning the air with binos I find ridiculous. As I've said before, IMHO it is critical that this is improved in OFF2, so as to make planes, even if as specks, visible at longer range. Anyway...

 

...even allowing for that, there seem to be few Hun planes around. If I 'warp' in an RFC campaign, sometimes I get straight back to base; sometimes I come out of warp automatically at some point, which I realise signifies there are enemies around, but I can't see them. I have tried turning the 'radar' on and even they they rarely appear, even if I set the radar's range to maximum (8 miles). Friendly flights are somewhat more common - tho as usual they hard to spot without the 'radar' and/or labels turned on, but at least they DO appear, fairly often.

 

German flights are a different matter. They seem to be rarer than hen's teeth.

 

I fly with various mods but don't believe ANY of them could be causing this; for example I know the AI empty weight mod can cause the odd lower-powered plane in a flight, at some airfields only, to crash into obstructions after takeoff but it can't be causing all the Huns to crash! It's like their own airfield defence MGs are shooting them all down or the pilots are just sleeping in! Or that something has damaged the process which sets the German flights flying, or has got them stuck on a 'low' intensity setting.

 

I have tried changing the air activity density setting in Workshop and also tried different sqaudrons, different time periods and different versions of Bletchley's campaign mod. Nothing much seems to help.

 

The only things I have noticed that might indicate the source of this issue are:

 

1. when installing OFF, towards the end I got an error (Vista 64) re file c:\Windows\System32\stdole.tlb - unable to register type library - error accessing the OLE registry'. When starting OFF, I also get an error 'DXFile 1.2 - RT error 429 - ActiveX component cannot create object'. I tried to fix this by a full uninstall and re-istall, with no effect - I still get both messages. From what I can find out, this is likely something to do with the user interface and/or playing videos. These play ok for me and anyway I tend to RULE OUT this issue as a reason for my empty skies, unless someone cal tell me otherwise..

 

2. German planes show up much more often when I'm flying 2-seater missions, especially bombing ones.

 

Issue 2 seems be be a better clue. I've noticed that in my RFC scout campaigns, even with Bletchley's mod, I seem to get a LOT of missions which involve flying behind my own lines, or just up to the Lines. In fact I can't recall the last time I got an RFC scout mission that took me into Hunland, apart from an escort mission.

 

With 2-seaters, ALL the missions I get seem to be at least up to the Lines, with most being over the German side eg bombing raids.

 

So I'm thinking that the problem may not be that the Huns are not flying - that they are, but (entirely realistically) preponderantly over their own side of the lines. The underlying problem, then, would be that RFC campaigns are generating too many pointless missions, to areas on your own side where (quite rightly) few enemies ever appear.

 

I had already started ingoring 'behind own lines' RFC scout mission flightplans, and instead flying these as line patrols, just on the friendly side of the lines. Doing this, I still rarely see anything, just the occasional Hun 2-seater or small flight thereof. Probably quite realistic!

 

So, in future I am going to ignore ALL flightplans for RFC and RAF campaign missions that do NOT take me at least to the enemy side of the trench lines.

 

Instead, I will fly these either:

 

(i) as a Line Patrol, just over into the ENEMY side of the Lines, to deter or catch 2-seaters on recces or art obs; or most often,

 

(ii) as an Offensive Patrol, going a few miles into 'Hunland'; or

 

(iii) as a Distant Offensive Patrol, going a longer way over.

 

Ground attack or escort missions only, will I fly as per the allocated flight plan.

 

Others who have been experiencing a dearth of Huns in RFC campaigns might want to try this too. I have no idea yet if it will make any difference, at all. If it turns out that there are few Huns in Hunland too, I am at a loss as to where the problem lies!

 

It's a pity, because OFF has some beautiful RFC birds to fly and fight in, with great skins and nice bump-mapped ribs, inclung the Tripehound:

Edited March 18, 2012 by 33LIMA

[MAKO69 186]

Beware of the Hun in the Sun!

[33LIMA 972]

Beware of the Hun in the Sun!

 

 

Looked there already, he's not there, either

[33LIMA 972]

Sitrep, after several more missions flown. 10 Naval from Furnes, now moved on to May 1917 - lots of Archie in Hunland but no still Huns, not in the air anyway. Quite a few friendly flights, no enemy ones. It'll need another few flights to confirm the pattern but it seems something's wrong, somewhere. The mods can hardly be stopping the enemy flying as the friendlies are in the air in reasonable numbers. Weird.

[RamblingSid 3]

I think you said in another thread that you only operate

as flight leader ?

 

Perhaps try as flight member and rely on the AI

flight leader to spot EA.

 

At least that is what I assume happens.

I invariably am a flight member and there are too many huns !

 

There are problems with this approach: I can never keep up, arrive late into fights,

am a sitting duck because miles behind flight etc.

 

But on the whole it works quite well and it is relatively easy too see the wing leader

initiating an attack even if you can't make out the EA.

 

I think there are mods available that fix the "keeping-up" problem.

 

Hth with the missing enemy part of your question.

 

Cheers

[33LIMA 972]

I think you said in another thread that you only operate

as flight leader ?

 

Perhaps try as flight member and rely on the AI

flight leader to spot EA.

 

At least that is what I assume happens.

I invariably am a flight member and there are too many huns !

 

There are problems with this approach: I can never keep up, arrive late into fights,

am a sitting duck because miles behind flight etc.

 

But on the whole it works quite well and it is relatively easy too see the wing leader

initiating an attack even if you can't make out the EA.

 

I think there are mods available that fix the "keeping-up" problem.

 

Hth with the missing enemy part of your question.

 

Cheers

 

Thanks for the response, Sid. I generally don't much care for flying as wingman, hated this in RD3d and IL2 (fortunately picking a higher rank solves the latter) and I hate it still on the OFF Beta career. However hard I practice formation flying I and try to match throttle settings, I seem to end up playing catch up - I prefer to look around and not have to concentrate so much on staying in formation. To an extent I blame the lack of peripheral vision, that's inherent in all PC sims, and also like the patrol leader role.

 

Last mission, all the way home I had the 'radar' set to 8 miles and only friendly flights showed up. The 'radar' should I think be at least as likely to 'see' planes as the AI. You're seeing plenty of Huns, you say? What squadron are you flying from, and at what date? Are you on HiTR? If so, I'll give that a try.

[RamblingSid 3]

Hi LIMA,

 

I fly a lot of missions with 46 sqd from abt October '17, you could try them. Feb '18

onwards sees the action increase.

 

I usually fly Camels but I have a soft spot for the DH5 and have lately had a few

hectic careers with 41 sqd (I think-sorry, terrible memory). May also be option if you like ground

attack missions - also 1917 but summer.

The DH5 is ok, but watch out for the wierd aileron response - just like Profile 181 says

(thanks for that link btw), kudos to the devs for modelling this. And it pulls to the left a bit.

 

As for the formation flying, I'm gradually getting used to it, sans lables and tac.

There is a lot of throttle work involved and a hell of a lot of looking around, but I

think that was how it mainly was for the average bloke. Try it a few times, it does

get better. My main tip would be not to fly too close, stay between 100 - 150 ft away,

but the real problem is keeping up !

 

I find zoom helpful but use it sparingly. My eyes are pretty stuffed and I use zoom to emulate 2020

vision and better that pilots generally had.

While all my careers so far have been nasty, brutish and short, they aint been boring

 

Hope this ramble is some use.

Oh, and it's HitR - unmodded.

 

Cheers

[33LIMA 972]

Thanks Sid I'll give '46' a try, I quite like all the OFF Sopwiths including the Camel. If there are still no Huns in Hunland, then I'll know it's something else wrong, and will try disabling mods, unlikely tho I think it is, that one of them could be to blame. At the moment my impression is that the March to May period with the RFC is blighted for some as-yet-unknown reason, tho that may prove a dead end.

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Lima, are you using either my or Bletchley's campaign/weather mods, or any mod which alters the mission frequency (e.g. changing number of missions per day) of your campaign pilot?

[33LIMA 972]

Hi HPW. I have enabled Bletchley's 1917 mod but am just about to try again with it disabled, next will be disabling all mods then enabling one at a time. I've flown a long mission into Hunland with 46 in Nov 1917 with the radar on and at max range, came across about 6-8 friendly flights but not a single enemy one, down as far as Cambrai. that was with bletchley's 1917 active sector mod may-dec 1917, which i doubt can be causing this problem.

 

The other mods I've been playing with are your DM, your DM+arcmod+Fe2b, your Halb Empty weight mod, flakmod, sound tweak 2, new gun sound, mod, the AI weight mod+your FM mod for that. I can only think the prob must be in there somewhere, though that seems extremely unlikely, but as Sherlock Holmes said, when you eliminate the rest, what's left must be the truth, however unlikely!

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

You sir, are the moddiest! I think you have even more mods enabled than me!

 

I agree that the mods probably don't have anything to do with the lack of Huns, with two possible (although unlikely) exceptions--Bletchely's 1917 mod and my weather mod because they alter the campaign mission frequencies. My thinking is this: OFF does not use spawns, but instead generates missions based on actual squadron location and activity. In some scenarios in my weather mod (during a major battle like the Somme, for example), I altered some of the missions on rainy days from "0" (representing a complete washout) to "1" (representing one mission on that day). On other days during fair or good weather (again during major battles), I sometimes increased the mission frequency from 1 to 2 or even 3 missions for that day. I'm wondering if the OFF Order of Battle does not contain enemy squadron "assignments" for these extra missions.

 

Therefore, in your Sherlock Holmesian investigation, I recommend that you start with these mods to see if removing them cures the problem. In the meantime, maybe a kind soul from OBD will jump in here and give us their opinion on the "mystery." I just hope I'm not playing the role of Moriarity!

Edited March 19, 2012 by Herr Prop-Wasche

[33LIMA 972]

We should both be safe enough there, AFAIK there's no Reichenbach Falls Mod available for OFF :)

[33LIMA 972]

We should both be safe enough there, AFAIK there's no Reichenbach Falls Mod available for OFF :)

 

...or maybe you mean THIS Moriarty (1.48 et seq)...

 

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Neither one, I hope!

 

(Love the production values)! When is that from--1927?!!

[RamblingSid 3]

If it's any help. Lima,

 

I flew a couple of missions just now with 46, 1 at end of November '17 and the other in February '18.

Had the tac enabled. The November mission was a bit quiet, here's a screenshot from the second:

 

 

As you can see from the tac, plenty of enemy about.

 

Can only think it is the mods.

 

Hope you get it fixed ok.

[33LIMA 972]

Well in desperation I uninstalled/reinstalled - and still got the error re stdole.tlb near the end and then the 429 ActiveX error when launching, without obvious ill-effect. Patched up to HiTR 1.47 and with 46 Sqdn Nov 1917 the Huns are back, first mission anyway! Trust it's not a fluke.

 

I'm now going to fly for a bit between installing mods and try to find out which one, if any, is causing this.

[Salvo2 0]

I lack the 'Stick Time' in this sim, but I did allot of reading as a I awaited the Postman to bring my disc.

 

Many times we all "think' we're blessed with the eyes of an eagle, it's amazing how many really are

 

I found the Uncleal's tips and tricks STICKY just North on this page to be very informative

 

The Labels are troublesome when trying to 'get into' the game

 

However the TAC cycled to aircraft only, I found most helpful #11

 

In it's stock location it's an Immersion Killer BAD, but you can drag it to the LL corner

 

A Hun can hide if there's a cloud between you and him

 

BUT he CAN'T Hide from the TAC

[Salvo2 0]

I enjoy use of the TAC screen, cycled to aircraft only, dragged to the LL corner, as an early warning system as you may not see the Hun behind the cloud, but there's no hiding from the TAC. When the aircraft is fairly distant, it's a White Blip, as it closes on your position

 

It changes color BLUE Friendly . . .RED Enemy. Sometimes a Red dot is in the center, yet the skys are clear. He's above you . . . You ARE the center