Armchair Aces 1917

[+ojcar 157]

...Is uploaded and waiting for admin approval.

 

This is the third chapter of Armchair Aces, covering air ops in Western Front, 1917. About 120 missions per pilot. You can fly as Australian as well now!

 

You can also fly as a German Schusta pilot, flying two seaters and flying both escort and ground attack missions.

 

Once again, thank you to Stephen1918 for the texts and all the betatesting.

Edited April 2, 2012 by ojcar

[33LIMA 972]

Great stuff, grabbed it now, off to check I have all that is needed. I have been looking forward to this one especially, as 1917 is the period I like best! Brilliant - thanks a million!!!

[33LIMA 972]

This is getting scary! First Armchair Aces 1917 mission with Jasta 5 in April was fairly quiet, to start with anyway. A short chase after a couple of BEs who looked to be sneaking in to bomb our airfield ended with both being knocked down by the Albatrosses already chasing them. A short hop over the lines was quite a peaceful little jaunt, until looking behind and counting my flightmates, more out of incipient boredom than anything, revealed there were 4 of them not the 3 I'd taken off with. Hmmm, that's not quite right, is it? A hasty closer look revealed that the tail-end charlie was an RFC SPAD 7! A pell-mell combat ensued; I shot down two SPADs but lost one of mine.

 

But the second mission - that was as hectic a mission as I've ever flown in First Eagles, barring none! Just after takeoff, the 3 of us got jumped by a pair of Triplanes and I was lucky to knock down both, mainly by the slightly underhand but rather effective tactic of sneaking up on them while they were trying to nail my comrades. Forming up again and heading for our patrol sector over the lines none the worse for wear, I could see that there were several air battles in progress, most picked out by flakbursts, and joining the nearest, I managed to get behind a DH2 and fairly shot his engine to hell and back at point blank range, to no great effect it has to be said. After I broke away, a DIII from a different staffel promptly showed me how to do it right by shooting off the De Havilland's lower right wing.

 

Not to be outdone by this, I turned my attention to another pair of pushers who were dogfighting an Albatros nearby. FE2s they turned out to be, big, slow-moving packing cases with a suprising ability to pull some tight low-speed turns to get out of your way just when you were lining up a shot. After a bit of weaving about, I managed to get a long burst into one from behind without getting a stoppage and he fairly fell to pieces in my fire, no doubt about that one. By this time, I had lost sight of my flight-mates and headed towards two other planes coming my way, who turned out to be not my friends, but two more Triplanes, seemingly intent on avenging the squadron mates I had despatched earlier. A glance behind revealed one of my comrades had come from nowhere and was now right behind me, so we pitched into them, head on. I've got two guns and you have one, I told myself, and held my course with the finger on the trigger and the leading Triplane's engine coming right for me, getting quickly bigger. He's not going to break, is he...no he didn't and nor did I...untill the very last minute when I lost my nerve and pushed the stick forward...about the same time the Triplane did the same thing. Goodnight Vienna, as the saying goes.

 

This is going to be interesting!

Edited April 4, 2012 by 33LIMA

[Buddy1998 2]

@ 33LIMA

 

If you don't mind me asking, what mods are you using with the "Armchair Aces" either required or extra?

[33LIMA 972]

@ 33LIMA

 

If you don't mind me asking, what mods are you using with the "Armchair Aces" either required or extra?

 

Hi Buddy!

 

I'm fairly sure that apart from the stuff recommended for Ojcar's Armchair Aces campaigns, like the medals mod, planes and groundobjects such as ground MGs, the mods I'm using currently, all from CombatAce I'm pretty sure, are:

 

- Polak's Skymod, which produces the dramatic horizon clouds;

 

- a cloud mod, not sure which one but probably an SF2 one as 1st gen clouds don't seem to work due to the different particle system used by 2nd generation Third Wire sims;

 

- Shrikehawk's worn airfield textures;

 

- a hand-edited Flightengine.ini, with MeshDetailSize=22 as this figure means city buildings are drawn right out to the horizon;

 

- an engine exhaust effect mod which cuts the over-done (to my eye) stock smoke trails and helps FPS a bit too - can't find it now, must be here somewhere!

 

- a hand-edited MissionControl.ini, edited as below to 'comment out' the two lines in the [Map] section which create the little plane icons, which takes the AWACS-effect out of the in-flight map (combined with Gameplay Options set on 'Hard', this edit keeps map and screen clear of all the unrealistic visual aids but I can still bring up the on-screen info box with my plane's speed/alt/heading by hitting Alt+D if I want to have a peek):

 

//FriendlyIcon=MapFriendlyIcon.tga

//EnemyIcon=MapEnemyIcon.tga

 

- Edward's Flanders Terrain, needed for the excellent Bloody April campaign (I have tried most of the other terrain mods but am generally fairly happy with the stock terrain, rough areas and all, not least because the area of the Lines is better blended in, not quite as good as OFF but still reasonably convincing.

 

Other mods I've tried but haven't so far re-installed after my last system re-install:

 

- Vanderstock's 'Updated Trench Textures';

 

- Laton's Smoke Effects V.2.