Siggi

Please submit combat reports to the following schedule: Monday: Central Powers pilots. Tuesday: Entente pilots. Wednesday: Central Powers pilots. Thursday: Entente pilots. Friday: Central Powers pilots. Saturday: Entente pilots. Sunday: NADA. Central Powers = Krauts. Entente = Krumpets. One report per pilot per day. Please do not submit double-reports on a day. Eg, if your pilot dies or transfers etc, report the event of the previous pilot on the one day, then the event of the new pilot on the next day. EG: English pilot A dies, submit his total stats on XXXday. The new pilot, submit his total stats on the following elegible day. Any questions, please post them here. This new regime takes force from tomorrow (monday 9th november), everyone can submit their current stats today. This is all intended to streamline the process and spread the load and enable pilots to see their updates sooner rather than later (waiting all week sucks). Thankyou for your attention. :)

The bomber-stats are now remaining, appended to the fighter-totals in brackets. The medals are always carried over. Check the boards and see for yourself how it looks.

I considered that, but it looks crap. Personal choice, plus it's an added incentive to stay alive...die and you lose all your baubles, totally and permanently. Except the C.O.s, a perk of their job is they get their best totals preserved under their C.O. personas on the board.

When you send your stats in (they're current totals, yes?) I have to subtract the new total from the previous total in order to add the correct number to the board's running totals. For multiple pilots. That's why I need a calculator and notepad. Let's say your previous total was 7 9 11 3 and your new total is 9 13 12 4, I have to subtract 7 from 9, 9 from 13, 11 from 12 and 3 from 4. I write the result down on my notepad. I then do the same for the next pilot, then the next. I then add up all those numbers and add them to the board's running totals. When I tried to combine bomber and fighter totals onto the fighter board I had to do the above PLUS work out the fighter-only kills for the fighter-board running totals. I passed out and could be revived only with pure oxygen. See, I did what you're doing now, thought "Hey, that'd be cool!", then found out in practice it was a ball-ache. And, in fact, I don't think bomber and fighter stats should be combined, it paints a false picture. What you achieve on fighters is a different ball-game to what you achieve on bombers, and the stats for each should be able to be visually differentiated. But I've included bomber-stats in brackets next to the fighter stats, so visitors can see at a glance on the one page exactly what you've done with what. It's actually better than what you're asking for, because it gives the total figures right where you wanted them AND allows you to see what ones were got from what. Yay!

The easiest answer to that is look at the boards, see what data they hold, then imagine getting the updates from multiple pilots and think what has to be inputted and how the figures are derived. It took me half an hour this morning, with a calculator and notepad. Which isn't a great deal of work, but mainly because I've made it that way. I have my coffee and toast while I'm doing it. I have to font, size and colour too. And jiggle sliders around. It all adds up you know. Then save and FTP it. Then notice I did something wrong and open DW again, fix it, open FTP and upload again. Fortunately my calculator is solar-powered, so I don't have to worry about batteries. Seriously though, I don't enjoy doing it, but I enjoy what it adds to the group experience, and that's my motivation. If it was a burden I wouldn't do it. Simples. It's what it is and it works and looks the way it does because that's how much I want to cope with, however little you may or may not think that is. And you're talking about a minor detail, that if changed to the way you want might not suit somebody else. Then where would we be?

It would be a lot easier to have everything on one board, but it would look crap too. Having bomber and fighter totals combined on the fighter board made it difficult to calculate the fighter running totals. I'm not very good at maths, even with a calculator, I kind of go into a dazed trance. I've added the bomber stats next to the fighter stats, in brackets. Now everyone can see at a glance the total stats for each pilot on one page (sides respectively of course, I won't have fratinization in a common mess ). Anyway, King George and the Kaiser made me do it this way.

I'll add bomber stats to the fighter stats in brackets, that should do the trick.

Stiffy, think about the extra bit of work it causes you (x1) vs the extra bit of work it causes me (x24). I have streamlined it so it's as easy for me as it can be. However you look at it, you've got an added component that didn't exist before, so all told you're in the black.

Ya, the medals. I'll add the double and triples of the same medal. I kind of thought they were a bit bogus, which is why I haven't put them up, but I guess they can be considered bars. I did have barred medals, but at the size they are now they wouldn't show up very clearly. Please report them as usual in your next reports and I'll add them.

I've made it so it's as easy for me as possible, which is also the easiest for you chaps. As a bomber pilot you give me bomber totals, on the designated days. As a fighter pilot you give me ditto. Stats are seperate for bombers and fighters. Your bomber stats are not carried over to the fighter stats. I tried it, it did my head in. The running totals at the bottom of the boards didn't make it easier. That's why your name stays up on the bomber board when you are a fighter pilot. When on bombers, if you die, invalided, POW, transfer, you give me your final bomber stats on the first elegible day. On the next elegible day you give me your fighter stats (even if they are all still zero). That way I know which is which without any possibility of confusion (and believe me, I'm easily confused). If this system was automated or user-interfaced it would have features up the ying yang, but it's all manual, and I'm Manuel (ola). If you see a chap on the fighter board you know he's come off bombers, so if you want to see his earlier stats you just hop over to the bomber board. It's what it is chaps. I know it could be better but there's only so much I can handle with other stuff I have to do each day (work mostly). I did this with DiD for IL2 a few years ago, around 200 members with a significant percentage of those each day sending me reports, which I updated on a board as I'm doing with this. I burned out after a year (just over a year), though I was also creating a new mission each and every day for the daily MP sessions. This OFF jobby is relaxed by comparison, but I'm not going to let that sucker me in to over-reaching myself. The way it is now I can continue indefinitely, or until armistice-day, whichever comes first.

I've been anticipating VR-goggles for a few years now. A resolution of such quality as to allow full detail, full peripheral vision etc. But I think a game would have to be specifically coded for it. Is the resolution there yet? We're talking, in effect, about a screen only inches away from the eyeballs, and curved too.

This sim continues to blow me away. We were tasked with bombing an enemy airfield. Three of us in B1s with three 1 1/2 Strutters as escort, got the field in sight and were engaged by a large group of Halbs. There were planes all over the place. I managed to get my bombs away and then made for the lines, keeping an eye on my tail. Then I made out a plane coming right at me and right at the moment I applied full aileron and kicked the rudder he opened up on me. I was genuinely bricking it as I watched the smoke-trails come at me and then flash past where my left wings had just been. Got onto his tail and got a couple of bursts into him before I pulled up. The next five minutes were nerve-wracking as I tried to regain height and get back over the lines, all the while with aircraft dog-fighting around, above and below. Got over the lines ok at about 5000ft and noticed archie going off in the distance. Put my glasses towards it and spotted four Rolands at about 2000ft heading left to right. At this point I'm thinking "I'm on a bombing mission, I'm not obliged to go after them..." But a perverse sense of virtual duty came over me. I really didn't want to engage them, because I know how it usually ends. But I turned and put the nose down, both my flight with me. By the time we reached them they were turning themselves and I slotted into the wake of the nearest and started shooting from about 300 yards. Then they started shooting back and I could hear the occasional 'twangs' as rounds went through my kite. I was laying it on thick myself, pretty much willing the belt to run dry so I could call it a day and get out of it. Most of my rounds were going wide but I could see a few puffs of dust coming off him. I got to within about fifty yards of him, praying I'd hit his gunner. Then my gun ran out of ammo and I broke off. Motor still running! Miracle! Two of these buggers then followed us all the way back to our field, smoking one of our escort about two miles behind us. They actually strafed me after I'd landed! I didn't think I'd got a kill, but the claim-form came up, much to my suprise, so I claimed the Roland. But neither he nor the Halb had looked to be in trouble after I'd shot at them. The Roland got the worst of it though, and I can only assume I forced him down with damage. There were some genuinely stressful moments in that mission, and as an organic whole of an experience it was truly superb. Bloody trains running along, the barrages on the front, the sound, the visuals, the action. This is, to date (since 1994), the best PC game I have owned.

I agree with WM, it's very aggravating to have the game stolen while in extremis. But it's not like the OFF guys haven't tried, or would keep it from us if it were possible. It's just another proof of what a bunch of arrogant hacks the MS coders were, thinking they had some moral right to dictate to us how our game should end. Probably done in the name of political correctness.

Something for which they should be prosecuted, in my opinion.

In Bosnia we went for quality over quantity.

Ears are one thing, quick to take and easy to carry, but a head? An arm? Only a seriously ill lunatic would do such a thing on civvie-street, never mind in a combat-zone. Any real soldier will devote whatever spare capacity he has to weaponry and ammo, not bloody body-parts. The notion is absurd beyond belief.

It broke mine too, my mother banned me from making models for quite a while after that.

Yeah, but it looks like a Sopwith Camel I made when I was a kid and put the struts on back-to-front shortly before smashing a grapefruit down onto it.

My god, that is one pig-ugly plane.

What kind of moron takes a head? In that heat? Arms?? Where did they keep them, in the beer fridge?! Where did he/they stash it/them on the way back from the field, in a backpack? I think somebody was pulling your leg. Or did you see this yourself? A person would have to be some kind of psychotic to take a head.

This weekend gone, the first of the DiD campaign, was put underway with a magnificent showing from all involved. And casualties were suprisingly light, with only one death and one capture.

The only issue I see with the AI is some of the planes like to yo-yo when they get close to the deck, but as that's usually when I'm running for my life I ain't gonna bitch too loud about that

I can't understand how the AI planes would be modelled differently to the human ones. Or maybe it's so because the devs know the AI is too stupid to know it's planes limitations. In which case the players would escape certain AI planes by diving, knowing the attacker would be sure to shed it's wings. Kind of an immersion-killer. But so is the opposite I guess, as Olham is finding.

I'm sure I've read about players seeing the AI lose wings in dives and turns.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1224494/Oops-Civilian-joyride-fighter-jet-pulls-ejection-switch-mistake-lands-scratch.html