Armchair Aces

[+ojcar 157]

Hello all! I have uploaded new versions for Armchair Aces 1916 and 1917. It was a bug (a typo) in an airfield name, making impossible to fly as a Belgian, so go and download Armchair Aces 1916 1.3 and Armchair Aces 1917 1.2.

 

I'm sorry, Grinseed, but I think you have the same bug in your FE1 versions too!!!!

 

And coming soon......Armchair Aces 1918!

[33LIMA 972]

Thanks Ojcar...off to grab them now!

 

 

Edit....ooops! Not visible yet, they must be pending Admin clearance...patience, patience!

Edited June 22, 2012 by 33LIMA

[Panama Red 22]

Thank you.

[+ojcar 157]

Well, Armchair Aces 1918 is uploaded and waiting for admin approval. Enjoy it!

[+Stephen1918 1,473]

Nice! Armchair Aces is a HUGE addition to First Eagles - educational and inspirational. Thanks for all your hard work.

[33LIMA 972]

Got it, looking forward to re-living your second screenie; always liked the Nieu 28 since the 1/72 Revell kit came out in the 60s and now I can fly it in campaign, great stufff!!!

[+quack74 329]

Not to highjack the thread but since there is the N28 in the new Armchair 1918, this is what I have so far for you guys. It uses the stock squadron markings for whichever U.S. squadron you choose. But it is too difficult to color the cowl to creat the proper flight markings. So I will just make the base solid colors. (no stripes or checkers, diamonds, etc.etc.) Not for now anyway.

 

 

 

[33LIMA 972]

Well I just flew my first USAS campaign mission in Armchair Aces 1918 and it was my last! These 1918 skies are downright dangerous!

 

Near our objective, leading a flight of four 94th Aero Nieuport 28s, I practically flew over what turned out to be a couple of Hun 2-seaters going the opposite way lower down, would have missed them but for the white AA bursts that suddenly appeared around the enemy aircraft. Rolled over and dived down after them. My flightmates got stuck in too, a bit too vigorously as it turned out, one of them suddenly colliding with one of the enemy planes after a risky head-on pass - a horrible sight and a bad start! My comrades got the other Hun before I could get a bead on him.

 

After that it just got worse. We managed to see off a couple of sports in Albatrosses, again my flight-mates doing most of the damage. Breaking away after the last one went down, I saw one of my friends twisting and turning with a Fokker triplane. I needn't have hurried over to help him; a burst from my comrade and the fokker's top wing broke in two and flew off right in front of me; he nosed over quickly and went down like a shot bird. But there was another triplane out for revenge and he was hot stuff. We got into a rolling scissors which soon went badly when I stalled out and lost some height in recovering. He promptly went after my flight-mate which probably saved me, so I climbed back up and went after him again. Another scissors developed, with the wily Hun turning inside me and very nearly getting me more than once, not to mention several truly scary near misses as we crossed over. Not as scary as the last crossover, during which we promptly collided, thanks to my own desperation in trying to avoid being pushed out in front of his guns again. His prop removed most of my fin, rudder and tailplane and this time it was my turn to plunge vertically into the ground.

 

A sad and early end for my first USAS career but what an air combat experience it was, from first to last! It's like LIVING the stories you read about in Flying Fury, Winged Warfare and the rest. What a sim this is!

 

Armchair Aces 1918 plus First Eagles 2 - white-knuckle WW1 air war knife fighting at it's very, very best!

[33LIMA 972]

Not to highjack the thread but since there is the N28 in the new Armchair 1918, this is what I have so far for you guys. It uses the stock squadron markings for whichever U.S. squadron you choose. But it is too difficult to color the cowl to creat the proper flight markings. So I will just make the base solid colors. (no stripes or checkers, diamonds, etc.etc.) Not for now anyway.

 

Wow, really nice skins there mate! The 'stock' one is nice but a little anaemic to my eyes. Off to grab them on the assumption you have uploaded!

 

Edit - not there yet, that I can see...waiting patiently...as the good Doctor Lecter said, all things come to those who wait!

Edited June 27, 2012 by 33LIMA

[Grinseed 19]

I'm sorry, Grinseed, but I think you have the same bug in your FE1 versions too!!!!

 

And coming soon......Armchair Aces 1918!

 

I have just got online today on a temporary set up for the first time in almost a month. Ojcar, I will re-edit the FEG AA 1917 and prepare a FEG version of the 1918 AA.

However, I have undergone some serious RL changes in the past couple of weeks and still have some very important personal duties to attend to, so I may not get any these edits done for at least another month yet, but they will get done, cause I cant wait to get back into the virtual blue again.

 

Cheers Grinseed

[Buddy1998 2]

I have a couple of questions:

 

1. I haven't seen a single infantry unit during the whole 1915 campaign. Where do they show up? I did figure out that I had them under "groundobjects" folder instead of "groundobject" (without the "s"), so I thought that might be the cause. However, I still can't see them anywhere on the map or during flight.

 

2. Will my pilot get automatically transferred to other bases or is it a manual process?

 

Cheers.

[+ojcar 157]

Hello, Busddy1998!:_

 

1.There are no great battles in 1915. Only a little French offensive in September (Verdun map). So you can be sure they are in the trenches...MUCH more ground action in 1916 both in Somme and Verdun.

 

2.No transfers to other bases in the mini campaigns, but you can change your base fron one campaign to another. Some units change their base (and their map-sector) from time to time. You must look for your unit: for example, you finish your Flandersfront05 campaign in the X unit. When finish, you must look for your X unit in FlandersFront06, VerdunFront06 and VogesenFront06.

[Hansa 12]

I don't remember if i added this skin to my HR pack, but here you got a better skin for the Nieuport 28, I don't know how to upload it here, feel free to upload it.

 

Nieuport 28 skin

 

 

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xspwvg

(Click on "Click here to start download from sendspace")

Edited July 17, 2012 by Hansa

[33LIMA 972]

Sweet, thanks Hansa, a big improvement. Only minor quibble is that the fin/rudder stripes are still showing red-white-blue instead of white-blue-red as in Quack's as-yet-unfinished skins; otherwise, very sweet, thanks!

[Buddy1998 2]

Thanks for the reply. One more question I have is how would I go about modifying the ini's in order to combine all the 1915 months into one continuous year while still perserving all the changes that occur during that year?

[+ojcar 157]

You can't. There are a lot of units changing maps, or being re-equiped, or entering service month by month. If you like that detail level it's much better to play each campaign one after another. Another side effect of trying to do all the war in a single campaign is that probably one force conquers the entire map in Verdun or Somme battle, finishing the war in 1916! Ground war can be very tricky in this game.

[Buddy1998 2]

OK. I know some of you are probably burnt out answering questions, but I need your help with getting my game fixed so that I can get maximum enjoyment out of it. I've been struggling to get the groundobjects (AAA, tanks, trucks, infantry units) to appear in my game. I tried everything I could think of. I checked that the lods, ini and data.inis are in the proper folders for the ground objects. I've played on the stock campaign as well as armchair. I tried on both the stock terrain, then verdun. I think that I may have a problem with either the types.ini or target.ini, but I'm not sure. I'd like to see the objects appear randomly on the map, or do I need to enter each coordinate in the ini file.

 

Thanks

Buddy

[+Stephen1918 1,473]

Infantry units, tanks, and armored cars will show up as targets in Army Co-operation missions. The game will randomly assign some friendly and enemy units in the target area.

 

Trucks usually show up as targets in Armed Recon missions. There are some trucks placed on the airfields, but these are static objects placed in the Targets.ini.

 

AAA guns are assigned by the game in locations determined by the Target.ini.

 

If you place everything in the GroundObject folder, they should show up randomly during the game. Inside the data.ini for each object there is an "Availability" setting which determines how often the game assigns them. You can try making some of the ground objects "Very_Common" to make them show up more often.

 

 

[Buddy1998 2]

Thanks for the clarification. I tried to wander around the map to see if I could find any ground objects fighting each other, but all I could see were a few scattered tanks around the trench line firing shells. What I expected to see was an actual offensive movement from either side with infantry units +/- armoured cars, tanks, etc... firing at other units or at planes and dust/smoke more frequent on the trench line. Maybe also see an occasional truck convoy travelling the roads. Now I think that I understand the game will only generate the appropriate ground objects when the mission calls for it. It would be great if there was a way to tweak some files to create a more comprehensive dynamic ground movement.

[Wrench 9,565]

like the SF and SF2 series, there's an ~50km "Bubble" (for lack of a better term) around the Player Aircraft ™. Anything outside this 'bubble' de-spawns from reality. Conversly, they re-spawn when your 'bubble' comes back into range, so to speak.

 

You can easily test this;

start a regular mission, climb out to 2000 feet. Set the wing leveler and your heading along the longest axis of the map. Set throttle to a steady speed that's easy to calculate time with. Go to the free camera veiw back to your airbase. After however long it takes to fly the 50km, you should see the parked planes and any vehicles (ie: GroundObjects -NOT- terrain objects like buildings) "pop" out of existence.

That's how I discovered it!