Wish List for WOFF BH&H II

[rjw 48]

Hi folks

 

There is a lot of valuable information being shared here but if this is a "Wish List" for the devs to peruse, it would probably be a good idea to try and keep this thread lean, and take all the discussions into another thread dealing with the particular topic of discussion.

Best Regards

[+Trotski 936]

Sorry, didnt think

 

[rjw 48]

1 hour ago, trotski00 said:

Sorry, didnt think

 

No Problem. I think we all learn great things from ongoing conversations. Don't stop that, just take it into another thread and we can follow it there.

 

Best Regards

[Bletchley 8]

Caudron G4 as the training machine for French careers? Instead of the the BE2, as now. I think it would make Lt. Triggier very happy :)

B.

[catch 81]

This is not a biggie but I guess it should be documented in the wish list. It is of the pilot who casts no shadow .... 

Cockpit view .... no pilot shadow.

Outside view .... pilot shadow.

[Bletchley 8]

Would also be nice if the Caudron throttle animation was reversed as I think, as with most if not all French aircraft of this period, the throttle was pulled back to open the throttle (not pushed forwards as was normal for British and German aircraft)

Also true for Italian aircraft, I think, if OBD extends WOFF to the Italian theatre at some point...

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1343

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/39441/has-there-ever-been-a-plane-with-reversed-flight-controls/39443

Might even do that for the actual throttle controls, though I suspect that might lead to confusion and complaints! Historically, I think it did cause a number of accidents.  :)

B.

Edited April 25, 2021 by Bletchley

[busdriver 35]

Suggestion: When B Flight is "in transit" back to base, please program an enroute descent so the formation arrives over our airfield at a nominal pattern altitude of 2000 feet (or 600 meters) rather than arriving at their patrol altitude.  My observer is a bit of whinger, and he's tired of freezing his bollocks. He tells me that the nominal lapse rate is about 2C per thousand feet (1.5C saturated lapse rate and 3C dry lapse rate) so we would be much warmer and save 10 to 15 minutes getting to the bar. Think of it as a win-win.

[TROOPER117 146]

I never wait for the flight to 'eventually' come down together and land... as soon as I see the home airfield I'm offski old chap!

First down and straight to the mess... I've already had two egg banjoes by the time the others turn up  

[catch 81]

4 hours ago, busdriver said:

Suggestion: When B Flight is "in transit" back to base, please program an enroute descent so the formation arrives over our airfield at a nominal pattern altitude of 2000 feet (or 600 meters) rather than arriving at their patrol altitude.  My observer is a bit of whinger, and he's tired of freezing his bollocks. He tells me that the nominal lapse rate is about 2C per thousand feet (1.5C saturated lapse rate and 3C dry lapse rate) so we would be much warmer and save 10 to 15 minutes getting to the bar. Think of it as a win-win.

That is a great suggestion driver. The form up time after take off has been reduced in the latest patch so this would be welcome in the next one! That should be in a day or two. 

[TROOPER117 146]

9 hours ago, catch said:

 That should be in a day or two. 

You never know... it could happen. (Winders and Pol are just machines. They are probably being programmed right now)  

[Baldric 42]

Interior photos from the chateaus, bottles of good mosels/champagne for German pilots post debrief.  Interior photos of tents/scruffy quarters for RFC, wet mess and piano etc.  For post mission hijinx and out of tune/whisky infused renditions of Its a Long Way to Tipperary.  Just a thought.  :D

[Becker02 35]

Okay, a few little things:

Existing features

+ maybe better visible bridges in the inflight-map 

+ change of the flight-formation only if you are a squadron- or flight-leader, in any other case the system should decide between different formations randomly, like a decision from your chief,

+ Ability to restart the engine not only on the airfiled, but also near to a ground-unit and with a 2-seater everywhere (of course only when the second man is still living ...),

+ Rank and pilot-name on the paper, if you get the according document to a medal,

 

New features

+ a clock-gauge in the HUD (a: to simulate the fast view on your clock, b: because of the early aeroplanes without a clock in the cockpit, so the pilots did wear it on the arm, c: the time about the digital Z-Buttom is not very historical), 

+ That there is a use to land and turn off/on the engine. F.e.: If you land at a ground-unit or at an foreign airfield of your side, they can give you a little bit fuel, max. 30%, 

+ an actual aces-ranking-list, national and international

Greetings!

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by Becker02

[busdriver 35]

Observation: Currently the "Mission Hour" feature only allows you to delay the mission start time by up to three hours. When squadron activity is low (one player sortie per day) this frequently means you cannot fly an afternoon mission. Advancing to the next day or week when flying activity is low does not change this limitation. When flying activity is high, you must still fly in the morning in order to fly in the afternoon (you might get a second morning sortie).  It appears to me that the player is required to fly in the morning.  At least this has been my experience with a handful of short British & French careers in 1916. My Observer/Gunners hate flying before lunch, mostly they're useful just prior to afternoon tea.

Suggestion: Modify the "Mission Hour" to permit delaying the mission time well into the afternoon or evening. This would allow a player the flexibility to fly either in the morning or afternoon. Squiffy, Geoffery and Basil thank you in advance.

[Dutch_P47M 9]

Implementation of an real 3D-VR mode. 

[Creaghorn 10]

On 9.5.2021 at 10:59 PM, busdriver said:

Observation: Currently the "Mission Hour" feature only allows you to delay the mission start time by up to three hours. When squadron activity is low (one player sortie per day) this frequently means you cannot fly an afternoon mission. Advancing to the next day or week when flying activity is low does not change this limitation. When flying activity is high, you must still fly in the morning in order to fly in the afternoon (you might get a second morning sortie).  It appears to me that the player is required to fly in the morning.  At least this has been my experience with a handful of short British & French careers in 1916. My Observer/Gunners hate flying before lunch, mostly they're useful just prior to afternoon tea.

Suggestion: Modify the "Mission Hour" to permit delaying the mission time well into the afternoon or evening. This would allow a player the flexibility to fly either in the morning or afternoon. Squiffy, Geoffery and Basil thank you in advance.

 

 

You can always advance to the next mission as well, which is mostly a later daytime of the same day. Advancing hours goes up to 3 hours. What you can do is to advance 3 hours, leave the campaign and enter it again. Then you can again advance up to 3 hours from the daytime you left before etc.

[Bletchley 8]

Escorts!

There appears to be a random chance of a Bomber/Reccy mission being assigned an escort of fighters. This works well for French/USA and British missions, where historically the fighters were routinely assigned escort duties to their larger friends.

For German missions it doesn't, in my opinion, work so well - from what I can gather the elite German fighter units were never assigned escort duties, and for the 'lesser' units it was a rare assignment from the end of 1916. Escorts were provided by the 2-seater Schutzstaffel units that were based with the Reccy units from early 1917 and formed part of the Reccy flight when in the air.

In tinkering with the mission files over the years I have noticed that there is what appears to be an ON/OFF switch included in each mission entry at line 13 (it is set to either '1' or '0'). Missions assigned to cross over to the enemy side of the lines are set to '1' and those that do not are set to '0'. Other than that, I don't know what this switch does - changing the '0' to a'1' or vice versa appears to have no effect on the mission, that I can determine. If it is redundant, it would be great to see this re-purposed to switch fighter escorts 'Randomly On' as now, or 'Off', so that an entry of '1' retained the random chance of a Bomber/Reccy mission being assigned a fighter escort whilst changing it to '0' switches this off. This would not effect the stock missions, as all Bomber/Reccy missions are over the enemy side of the lines and all have a  '1' at line 13, so would continue to get the random chance of an escort. And the fighter missions don't get fighter escorts anyway.

For the 3rd Part Mission sets, however, being able to set escorts to 'Randomly On' or 'Off' in the mission file would enable the mission creator/editor to switch all or some of the German fighter escorts 'Off' to give an historically more accurate German Bomber/Reccy mission. It would be easy then to assume that the 2nd or 3rd aircraft in a German Reccy or Art.Obs. flight is the Schutzstaffel escort, and German fighters would no longer routinely cross the lines in close support  of the Reccy and Bombing flights as they currently do.

B.

[Buffin 0]

The choice of aircraft would be large. Especially the years 1915-1916 are much missing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_I_Entente_aircraft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_I_Central_Powers_aircraft

[Mortuus 1]

I'm absolutely certain I'm not the first person to ask for this, but I would love the option to list different witnesses for each victory on the form, especially in BHaH II. This may be a coincidence or some kind of error in my perception, but I've found since picking up the new expansion that my AI flight leaders and flightmates are much more willing to continue a patrol after a scrap, rather than flying home every time. As a result, I've had a few flights with multiple encounters, and the best witness for one may not be the best witness for another.

[+VonS 1,424]

51 minutes ago, Mortuus said:

I'm absolutely certain I'm not the first person to ask for this, but I would love the option to list different witnesses for each victory on the form, especially in BHaH II. This may be a coincidence or some kind of error in my perception, but I've found since picking up the new expansion that my AI flight leaders and flightmates are much more willing to continue a patrol after a scrap, rather than flying home every time. As a result, I've had a few flights with multiple encounters, and the best witness for one may not be the best witness for another.

A fine idea.

As far as I know, while that exact option is not yet possible - it is (in the UE/PE vers. of WOFF) possible to list, manually, extra witness names in the witness box. Simply place a comma after the first witness you choose in the witness box, and then type out any other witnesses who are available from the pull-down witness list. In order to do this, manually click on the witness box after choosing your first witness from the pull-down list.

Also recommended is to use a comma to separate multiple witness names, rather than a semicolon (since a semicolon, it has been rumored, created oddities at times such as perpetual postponement of claims going through, etc.). Have not tried this in WOFF BH2 yet, but I am assuming that the witness box is "clickable" there too. I also leave a space after the comma, for good measure, and not to upset the claims system, in my backport 4.18 install.

While this isn't exactly what you are asking for - theoretically, including a multiple witness list will "hit home" every time, with at least one of those witnesses being relevant if you have multiple claims listed.

Cheers all and smooth claiming systems to you ("next time you must have witnesses"),

Von S

Edited May 26, 2021 by VonS
Added info.

[Mortuus 1]

1 hour ago, VonS said:

A fine idea.

As far as I know, while that exact option is not yet possible - it is (in the UE/PE vers. of WOFF) possible to list, manually, extra witness names in the witness box. Simply place a comma after the first witness you choose in the witness box, and then type out any other witnesses who are available from the pull-down witness list. In order to do this, manually click on the witness box after choosing your first witness from the pull-down list.

Also recommended is to use a comma to separate multiple witness names, rather than a semicolon (since a semicolon, it has been rumored, created oddities at times such as perpetual postponement of claims going through, etc.). Have not tried this in WOFF BH2 yet, but I am assuming that the witness box is "clickable" there too. I also leave a space after the comma, for good measure, and not to upset the claims system, in my backport 4.18 install.

While this isn't exactly what you are asking for - theoretically, including a multiple witness list will "hit home" every time, with at least one of those witnesses being relevant if you have multiple claims listed.

Cheers all and smooth claiming systems to you ("next time you must have witnesses"),

Von S

Well, that's excellent to know! I've actually encountered the dreaded semicolon purgatory myself, and had been restraining my burned hands from touching the stove of mucking about any further. I'll have to give manually typing in extra names a try! My first BHaH II pilot met an unfortunate, tree-related demise* just after I posted my original reply, so I have a nice clean slate to test it on!

 

*what silly !@$^@#& put all those trees right  at the edge of the aerodrome where they can remove my undercarriage?

[Becker02 35]

7 new ideas:

Exisiting features

+ "Allocation of aeroplanes": should be possible only if you are a squadron-leader

+ Change of waypoints in briefing-menu: you must be a flight- or squadron-leader

=> CONCLUSION: a setting-buttom in workshop, that you can change the flight-formation, allocation of aeroplanes and the waypoints only by rank (flight- or squadron-leader)

+ "Normal claim": That you can use separate witnesses for every claim after a mission, if you have more than 1 claim; additionally ballons and ground units as witnesses.

+ "Normal claim": the problem is, that the claim-system is very complicated and for the user it is not clear how it works. It's like a black box. So the user doesn't understand the decision from the system. He gets the feeling of good / bad luck. Some members think, it is random, an algorithm (I don't know). So this setting should be more clear, more transparent, or equiped with a new special feature to make your "normal claim".

+ Sometimes your flight-fellows have a crash when they land on the airfield. You see always a full destruction of the aeroplane with the "brown hole" on the ground. So you believe the aeroplane has been destroyed and the pilot is dead. But then, if you click on "details" after the mission, you can read, that the aeroplane has beeen only damaged and the pilot is okay. Maybe it is possible to display these ground-crashes on the airfiled with differences as you can see it during the missions.

+ that the rivers don't flow uphill

+ a more intensive blue colour for the sky for autumn- and winter-terrain because of low temperatures and humidity. The sky in WOFF is more a blue-grey mixture, typical for summer with higher temperatures and humidity.

 

New features

+ Disciplinary Proceedings (it's not the centre of a WW1-flightsim, but it was reality).
Examples: you have a collision with a fellow, have hit a fellow with your bullets, have hit the wrong ground-unit or the wrong convoy with your bombs, or your flight is starting and you are staying on ground, ... . An official report from your chief or an officiell investigation with all historical-possible results (acquittal, file-informed warning, disciplinary proceedings, penalty transfer, degradation, court martial, etc.) would be a enriching feature in my opinion. Of course it must be possible with the system.

 

Greetings!

 

Edited May 2 by Becker02

[Rick Rawlings 138]

On 5/9/2021 at 1:59 PM, busdriver said:

 

Sorry, not sure how to get rid of an accidental quote on a tablet...

 

It's been mentioned before, but for witnesses, it would be good to be able to list artillery units, balloons, infantry, etc as well...

 

For mine, I would like to suggest a way to dither the transition from overcast to clear skies. Both views look great, but the transition is really jarring, probably more so than cloud pop. If there could just be some gradations as you go from one to the other would really help a lot.

[CastelEtzwane 23]

How about:

1) implementing streamers for formation leaders.

2) O.B. and German 1918 parachutes.

3) Recon formations which adopt a defensive circle when attacked (think only the British/French did this, maybe only the helpless RFC two-seaters like the FE2bs). Documented by Gould and several others.

4) the use of Very lights (flares?) to signal when the (RFC?) formation could break up ('wash out'). Documented by Gould and several others. Have also read about Very lights being by two-seaters to attract help from friendly scouts when being attacked.

5) Pilots waving their arm, for instance when meeting or regrouping. Or when disengaging after a lengthy but inconclusive combat with an enemy (to signify farewell).

6) Airfields implementing lights or flares after they have been bombed in order to warn returning aircraft to be careful when landing.

[TROOPER117 146]

No to parachutes... bloody jerries, you can just fall to your death like the rest of us!

Wait... I'd say yes if they factor in a 99% failure rate.

[CastelEtzwane 23]

It would also be nice to have the option to write a final epitaph for a deceased pilot, especially since most of us enjoy writing mission reports. Seems incomplete that pilot records lack the option to describe how that pilot came to the end of his journey.

For instance I just had an Albatross/Pfalz pilot that died on his 15th mission after an epic engagement with 3 RNAS triplanes. Many AI pilots try to leave after getting damaged, but these three Royal Navy pilots stayed put despite getting holed and my DIII pilot finally succumbed to blood loss. My poor DIII guy tried several times to break off without success.

It would be nice if a final account like this could be a part of the pilot dossier.

Would also be nice if clicking on the picture of the pilot dossier itself let you view the pilot record.