Bandy

Again, well put all of you, and nice to here positive words about the "community" that is supposed to be so fragmented... While I have yet to make a tangible contribution (ie: something downloadable) I feel I am part of this community, if only on the sidelines. I wanted to express some opinions in the "other" thread, but was loath to do so, as the excuses and crap that was being flung about made me sick. Some few people thrive on controversy and conflict. In fact, when so very few individuals (and as far as I can tell, they are the vast minority) find something so objectionable about the rest of the community, then it really isn't a divided "community" is it? If they marginalize and force themselves into virtual hermitage, so be it... It is an unfortunate and sad fact of life that some people make their own worlds to live in, and as everyone knows, don't crap where you eat. Just my $0.02 for good measure.

>Peter: As noted by many, I've seen the DFWC5 doing the loop-to-death, but have not for a looong time. Bizarre that it is intermittent...no? Very glad to download your "fix" however temporary it is. Thank you. Any recommendations on how to tweak it into a DFWC1 ??? I suppose just reducing power appropriately, but is that enough?

Did that just happen???? Deja Vu or I'M the Queen'O'England....

Peter, I think its great to get an insight into how you're approaching the FM's; it helps to understand why things happen when kooky things happen. Keep up the excellent work, you must have the patience of Jobe...

Anyone know what's up with this upload???

Hi Peter, Thanks for responding. I enjoy your work and efforts very much, and can sincerely appreciate the void you must find yourself in when trying to model these "early birds". I often wonder (given the sometimes touchy nature of craftsmen and their labours-of-love...) whether I should bother trying to provide constructive critique, which is totally the spirit of my earlier post, and the positive spirit I hope you have taken those comments in. That said, I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or not here? As you mentioned, you revised for your own work an EIII AI flight model and that it might be posted (and is good news!!!), and since I read that, I realised then perhaps it is good to think of this as an organic process, where things can grow to maturity within the community. Not trying to be too granola here...

Hello, Not meaning to sound ungrateful, because IMHO these aircraft are a tremendous addition for all of us, sincerely thank you (and here's the but...) BUT, I took the M-S parasol up in a single mission and inadvertently happened to leave 1916 as the year, and was confronted by 4 Fokker EIV's vs 4 M-S parasols. I thought about ESC'ing the mission, but decided to play through. My wing had altitude advantage, and I ended up downing 3 of the EIV's, an AI wingmate got one, and we lost one M-S. Hard flight model, hard enemy & ammo, but not targeting. Of course there are a number of factors playing here: we (me & my AI) had energy advantage in dogfight, the enemy AI may not be as active as it could be etc. etc. AND of course it isn't the plane it's the pilot etc... However, while I am aware of dogfight tactics, I do not consider myself well versed or even all that experienced, certainly not like many of you. Again, I am just trying to be constructive here to achieve a better balance, and it is just my limited opinion from a few missions, but I shouldn't have been able to down 3 EIV's (with the latest revised FM's from Peter I should add) with the stock M-S parasol. Perhaps it is a bit too "zippy" for such an early aircraft...

Well, no body else is providing feedback, so I might as well give it a go... I had fun flying the mission. On my first go I managed to get 2 or 3 of the VIII's and my wingmen got 1 each (is there 5 of the NME?), and we all returned to base safely, if shot up a bit. The flak is nice and active, but didn't factor in (was this a setting you choose? If so, well done). Other tries resulted in less than ideal results... So I guess it is a relatively balanced mission. As far as I can tell, when missions are prepared for download, the designer chooses whether to start on the runway or in the air and players are then locked in when they play. Many prefer to start on the runway for "immersion", and those that don't have the time for a runway start can always jump ahead or time-warp to the combat, so being forced to start in the air is perhaps not preferred. As well, having a mission start with the NME RIGHT on yer flank at guns range seems a bit unrealistic, unless they are coming out/down from the sun, and I don't think this is the case in this mission (correct me if I'm wrong). Thus a runway start would allow for players to build better altitude, better situational awareness, etc. which is probably NOT what you were after in the mission: that "just got jumped" feeling... Wouldn't it be great if the AI cannot be targeted if they have the sun behind them??? Or maybe if they are 6 O'clock high???

I continue to have minor clipping issues, and then some really bizarre whole tile drop outs in the foreground. But it sounds like to me that you've already seen these posts so I will not link to them... Funny thing is that I can go for a whole mission and not see them, then other missions it happens every few minutes, or it only happens towards the end. Patch 2 didn't fix it for me, upgraded ATI driver didn't either... If I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about it UNLESS you were thinking about buying an ATI card. I decided to not be bothered by the occasional glitch occurrence; that said, of course I hope it will be corrected, but meanwhile I just enjoy the game... a whole lot!!!

I noticed a crackling/popping sound all of a sudden when flying First Eagles, and after much frustration, managed to zero it to a bad downloaded 3rd party sound file. That I finally killed that son-of-a-dog file was most satisfying...

That was exactly what I was thinking when I commented earlier; make nifty missions for them! BUT then I thought, how do you incorporate a remarked aircraft into the game so that the "wolf-in-sheep's-clothing" aspect of the skin is expressed AND recognized as such by the AI ??? That is, if that aspect of duplicity is what you're after as a player flying the AC. But then [follow me here] it would be like shooting fish in a barrel if AI opponents only recognize captured/remarked aircraft as friendly (the sheep aspect) when you're trying to shoot them down... For it to really work in the game, there would have to be an AI "switch" for recognition of "the wolf" according to some distance factor and recognition of aggressive behaviour by the remarked aircraft. Not so easy I would think...

Thanks, I did have the old Mjr Lee KAW running, BUT I did a clean install with the latest available KAW download from CA, Oct 2006, which has carriers built in, so I'd assume they've worked for someone and that sqdrns and Carriers were matched. Yes, I'm trying to take off from a campaign mission, but only get an instant explosion and voice-over "check friendly fire"... I've tried the carrier deck height fix, ran over all the folders and names, etc. to no avail. Ahh, its no big deal...

Hi marv, I've been browsing the carrier related threads for some time (as well as trying out the knowledge base article), trying to be able to take off from "Korean Air War" carriers (they are already established in the campaign download). This 2007 KAW carrier thread was posted and got no replies. There are many threads with carrier issues, and I think there may be many different problems. I saw on one CA thread a link to a SimHQ thread that supposidely had some answers about the way the objects folder structure has changed with the last SF patch, but the link was dead... go figure... But none of the fixes posted thus far have helped; each time the loadout screen finishes and there is an "Earth-shattering-Kaboom" over the open ocean. I assume the plane has exploded taking the carrier with it? Is the fix you describe a fix for single missions only do you think? I'm just about to give up on naval aviation...

hey v. D, I'm curious, what's your inspiration for the series of "captured planes" skins lately? It certainly is an interesting aspect of history I was unaware of. How many captured AC were actually implemented in this way? While these repainted AC must have caused immense disorientation among enemy pilots when engaged, was that what they were ultimately after? Sort of a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing... The few crosses that were painted on the latest skin are quite small, and as you mentioned, many other British marks were not covered up [perhaps yet?]. Were they used for special missions? Or were supplies of their own AC inadequate, or technologically inferior at the time? In other words, what's the whole story, if there is one? Perhaps I'm missing some aspect of the game, or assuming too much here, but they seem to be very special unique skins, so I am tending not to download them at this time since it would diminish their character to see them show up too often (I usually fly British, but sometimes Baron von Heimlich likes to take to the skies to run up his score of Tommies). What kind of missions do you fly them with, or recommend them in??? That said, I do appreciate the craftsmanship you demonstrate...

..was it a REALLY good weekend... or was I just seeing things? BTW, That's me in the middle...

Yes, thanks for an entertaining mission... I think you mentioned in the readme you had trouble keeping your flight together from take-off. I tried it and had no issues, I just kept hitting tab>3 every once in a while and kept the throttle at 75 to 85%, AI compatriots do not seem to like it any faster... As far as ack-ack goes, I did not experience anything much (certainly not the level I expected around Zep hangers) but I've learned that user experience can be drastically different in this game, even from day to day, mission to mission. Then again, I loaded up with rockets, sent the flight in ahead of me at the last moment , and then tree-topped it in and bagged nearly all of them on the 3 fields in close proximity. All my wing came back safely (even after getting jumped by Albs), and me pilot got the VC for the mission, YEAH!!!

Great work, Now I only need to survive a mission to get to the coast!

Yes, the Staaken... I realized the mix up later but didn't bother... I could be misguided, but it may not be on your readme AC list... Of course, those who can access it likely have it. Been playing 3.1 from the British and French sides, it is a load of fun, thanks!!!

I hear you! But of course that ain't always possible when you've got several NME AC around--you take your best shot when outnumbered, sometimes any shot, when you get it... I seem to be pretty lucky with leading deflection shots lately... As far as filling the screen, do you mean your computer screen? SayWhat [my favourite pub in Toronto is named C'est What]: NOT trying to inflammatory here, but "POMs", I always thought that meant "Prisoner of His/Her Majesty" which referred to some [most?] of the Brits "relocated" to Aussieland, no? Thus I've heard Brits refer to Auzzies as such... [man, maybe I'm putting my foot in it here...] WikiLink Actually both perspectives are mentioned here, maybe Wiki is trying to be PC...

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound then... Since the Aussie has spoken I better chime in for the colonial view from across the pond Brown was Canadian, so am I. We have much the same problem as our colonial brethren down-under (but at least you had your own airforce in WW1); Canadian accomplishments in WW1 are generally lumped under "British" deeds. There is obviously a lot of pride in the GWN [Great White North] in the actions of Canadian war heroes like Brown and Billy Bishop, so the continuing debate/debunking Brown as victor in that dogfight will be on-going... well, at least from those who care... Whether machine guns "chew up" targets I think depends on the context: stationary gun will riddle the target to confetti yes; moving gun in 3 dimensions vs. moving target in 3d = no big surprise that only one bullet from a burst can hit a pilot... Afterall, its not like one bullet is immediately behind the other, and not likely the Red Baron was flying level and steady in a dogfight... RE: whether FE models damage and MGs realistically? I think it is doing a fine job. I have "hard" settings (except targeting & HUD) and have found the range of damage expression to span, well, the gamut: I have shot AC down with literally one bullet (lucky pilot hit) and other players have reported similar things from their AI flights (1 bullet 1 kill in stats screen), yet also I have come across "Kevlar" planes where I pump drum after drum of Lewis and belts of Vickers to no avail... and again others have also said they've seen that. So, I see no problem...

I have not experienced this at all post patch2, and I usually try to fly a mission or two from each of a handful of campaigns 1916-18 on a regular basis. BUT I saw it before and mentioned it in a post sometime ago. Some weird combination of mods? Ghost in the machine again??? I think it is just random events/chance, and I wouldn't try to chase them there ghosts in the FMs... Keep watching, I prognosticate they'll go away... :yes:

Was it on, or is it to air soon?

IMHO, I think the textures you've shown us are by far the best of any 3rd party AC currently out there... On par with the aircraft from 3rd wire in fact! You've set a new high standard!

I'm really glad to see this topic being addressed. I started to do it for myself, but then came across the same almost hopeless lack of end dates. Much of that must be that planes were phased out slowly (duh, ya...) and on the British side shifted across the channel for home defence. IMHO, there should be a set of loosely "standardized" dates that we can all agree upon (yah, right you say?!?), and then we can move forward with mods and compatibility won't be an issue. It doesn't have to be perfect, but a compromise will do... WRT whether something was in service in "Mesopotamia" shouldn't enter into the timeline for the Western Front. If anything, there should be separate timelines for different geographical/campaigns, otherwise AC that weren't in certain places won't show up there... Just $0.02 worth

FC, thanks again for the quick turn around on Fest 3.1... Can hardly wait to get past the first AC in any squadron though, the fest updates just keep coming before I can! Glad to see the early Fokkers are back in, they are terrific targets for the Pup Just curious why the Zeppelin Draken has not be incorporated? Was it such a rare bird you decided to keep it out?