Buckner

Hello everyone, It is great to see the conversations regarding "how to stay alive" that everyone has posted. They make for great reading on the bus to and from work each day. One of the real challenges that I have when approaching BHAH is the type of "mood" I happen to be in when I fly. My mood is defined as either patient, or impatient. My campaign pilots typically die when my temperment is on the impatient side. I fly Siggi's DID setting with no warping. The hour and a half missions can be tedious sometimes when there isn't anything going on. When I start to get bored I know that my chances of doing something really stupid increase, from going about trying to stir up trouble on my own to not paying attention and being in a rush to land. This probably doesn't differ much from what actual WWI pilots felt from time to time. This weekend I started to do something a little different, I'm not sure if this has been shared before but it seems to cut down on the "edge" factor some. Before I flew this weekend I asked myself the question- what do I want to get out of the game at this moment? If I had the time available to fly up to two hours, and my mindset was right- I'd give the campaign pilot a whirl. Flying in November 1915 from Bertincourt hasn't produced many EA recently so this turns more into a really cool version of Flight Simulator X :). I'm fine with this and find it to be great fun. If I don't have much time, or as I mentioned before, am lacking patience or on edge, I start up my quick flight pilot and throw our eindeckers against Bristol Scouts or DH2's. This satisfies my thirst for virtual blood and actually has a really calming affect for subsequent campaign missions. What is really amazing to me is how one misstep in these planes, from flight to fight, can be the demise of your pilot. I think that with this said this sim is inching ever closer to what may be the finest flight/combat sim ever. Thank you for indulging me, Buckner.

Hi Guys, One of my first missions as a young German pilot we were heading back to the airfield after an uneventful patrol of our lines. As the airfield came in sight, my flight lead made a strong right turn, taking us back to the front. I got pretty excited as we hadn't seen combat for a few days and scanned the horizon feverishly for EA. Only when we got over our frontlines did our flight lead make an about face to take us back to Bertincourt. I made a flyby as I external viewed to watch four EIII's land perfectly. It was an awesome sight. Buckner.

Hi Bob, Thanks for the help. I'll give it a try this weekend. I hope all is well with you and the boys of 60 squadron. Last I heard you were taking it to the Axis pretty badly. Thanks again, Buck.

WOWWWWWWWWWW!!! MK2 That is extremely impressive!!!!! What a fantastic deal you got going on there. Recognized many of the background wargame titles to. You look like the complete wargame hobbiest. Thank you for sharing. Buckner :)

Stump, PD, any other mission makers... I continue to get the following: "error determining frontline period or craft or payload for this mission file" when I try to run a user made mission. I read the readme and thought I had adjusted the frontlines to coincide with my pilots date, changed the mission date to meet it to.. Not sure how to get around this. I am sure the answer is simple, just don't know what it is. Thanks in advance for any help. Buckner.

WOW!!!! It is really cool that you kept that, very fun to read. I remember one mission where we were going to patrol the lines, my Dad had come over to get something and was listening to our team speak chatter. The best part was that we had formed up brilliantly and crossed the lines to patrol. We may have been at 6-7000' and had noticed a gaggle of DIII's below us. One of the flight leads gave the order to attack and we descended. In rapid fire order the calls came in---- I just lost my wings, Yank in- i lost em to, etc... Half of us descended to fast causing our Nieports to break apart, I think flak got the rest of us. My dad just about wet himself he was laughing so hard. The next time we got together, Hossman taught us how to "sidestep, or slidestep??". Anyhow how to lose altitude rapidly but at a very slow speed. Oh what fun times. At our height, I think we had 15 to 20 guys who flew with us at one time or another. Yeah back then, phase one seemed the cats meow. I think we were all pretty happy with it as it was, sure am glad the OBD team decided to keep working at it. Thank you for sharing that Gandi, it was great. Buck.

It was a silly mistake. Gandi, great to see you old friend. Hope all is well in England... The calendar says Spring should be arriving soon in Minnesota, -4 F this morning :). Really enjoying phase 3 campaigns right now. An hour or more per flight seems to fit the schedule after everyone has gone to bed, the silence seems to make it even more immersive. Miss the online flights Gandi, I think we had some fun in Phase One, never forget our first mission when we attacked an aerodome. There was alot of anticipation around the first mission- as I recall a couple of us lost our wings descending to attack with our Nieuports, the rest were shot up by groundfire. Overall I think we logged about 3 minutes combined actual combat time :)). Good stuff to remember. Again, hope all is well with you sir! As for the rest, enjoyed the comaraderie of biting it in midair collisions. Take care everyone, Buck.

Boy am I ever stupid!!! Changed my graphic settings by bumping them up one tick to see if the old cpu could handle it. Thought I had grabbed my quick flight pilot, strapped into a DR I, and was off. 3 Dr I's v. 5 SE5a's- no problem as I was mainly interested in seeing how the cpu handled the dogfight with increased settings. Flying like a crazy man I am diving, climbing, shooting everything then WHAM! Collide with an SE5a. No biggie, this was an unimportant pilot and the CPU seemed to do pretty well UNTIL... I realize that I had made a mistake in selecting my quick flight pilot and had ACTUALLY SELECTED my campaign pilot. So.... After 10 missions, 12 hours or real time flying, Heinrich Burdee FFA 32 (November 1915) is no more.... Boy am I ever stupid!!! Buckner

Hi Guys, Wanted to take a minute and share a couple of pics from a recent campaign mission. Three things happened that should give us hope that this mod is helping IMHO. 1. I actually had a two seater get on my tail and fire at me, twice no less... Holding the AI planes in utter contempt I was very surprised, but oddly very glad, when this happened. It forced me to break off my attack and perform evasive manuevers. 2. The damage was modified, WOOD and a setting of 8, I don't know what the default is but I encountered a Kraut plane with a smoke trail (yes the black smoke trail mod is installed.) I had never seen this before and wanted to share a picture of it. 3. One of the AI Brit Wingmen got a kill and another fired his guns! Never seen that prior to the mod in over a week of playing. Screenshot enclosed. Here is a thought about what Bortdafarm and others are doing with this mod and I will use my misfortunes as an example. I've been simming WWI games since the initial Red Barron game came out. The AI pilots have never been a match for myself or others that I have simmed these games with. What ineviatably causes me to die after a handful of campaign missions is something that is very realistic. Over confidence and putting my plane into bad situations is usually my demise. In this scenario that the screenshots are from, with the help of my newly aggressive wingman, we had cleared the skies of Hun aircraft with the exception of a lone German two seater. Early in the fray I had engaged this aircraft but broke off my attack after his rear gunner sent several rounds through my wing and showed no sign of giving me an easy kill. Feeling confident I could take this bugger down, I approached him very low from the 8 oclock side. I kept him above me until I got very close, popped up (around 75 yds perhaps?) and was instantaneously killed by the Red Baron of rear gunners. Very frustrating to see my SE-5 seperate into several flaming pieces. Long story short, you are doing great work on this mod! It could be argured that Voss, the Red Baron, and several other great WWI aces had few equals in the air on the Western Front. Bad decisions (fatigue?), and overconfidence (placing themselves in bad situations (Voss, 7-1)) caused many a great ace to lose their lives. With what you are doing with this mod, I dare say you are creating a very similiar environment. Keep up the good work and I'll also throw my hat in to help you test what you are doing. Thank you for your hard work. Buckner. Woops, new to this forum, sorry If I screwed something up with how I posted pictures and such. Buck.

Bort, Great Job!!! I'd agree with the armor plating be a tad strong on the ai planes but other then that... Superb Job! Cranked up the game after installing your mod. For the first time in a week of playing the sim I had an enemy plane on my tail actually shooting at me and following me through manuevers. I really like what you did with this. buck. Ummm... how does one go about changing the armor rating? Sorry, Newb Here.

Hi Guys, 'preciate the tweaks thread. I am wondering if there is a way to turn off the info display for your plane that appears in the bottom right hand of the screen? I didn't see anything in the manual. Thanks either way! Keith.

Thank you for setting that up. Made the changes to the German ACFT and was able to change the ATTACK/FIGHTER settings to. Thanks again.

This sounds like what I have been waiting for! Being new to this, where is the data.ins folder located so I would be able to make this change and try it out? Thank you.