andqui

I had a thread about this a while back, and there's one thing that I forgot that I want to add.

The way that two-seaters behave needs to be looked at a little bit- they never use their front guns. Two seaters should be perfectly willing to dogfight other two seaters. If a Strutter meets a flight of Roland's, they should have at eachother, trying to maneuver under and behind eachother. As it is now, two-seaters are considered "bombers" and have no interest in fighting back. But even if a fighter passes in front of a two-seater, that two-seater should at least try and get a quick shot off with the front gun.

This kind of ties into the AI disengage issue- the two-seaters need their own criteria of when to break off and when to keep fighting.

-If a group of two-seaters is bounced from above by enemy fighters, they should first form a defensive circle during the initial attack and then try to dive away to their own lines.

-If a group of two-seaters is bounced by a lone fighter or maybe two lone fighters, they should get closer together and use their combined gunner's firepower.

-If a group of two-seaters meets another group of two-seaters, then they should have at it, and start attacking eachother.

- ABOVE ALL- if the player flight leader orders his two-seater wingmen to attack an aircraft, they should actually attack it, and not just fly around aimlessly. Kind of like in Il2- if you're flying some Stukas, your wingmen act as bombers and stay on course- but if you tell them to attack a plane, they do their best to maneuver and attack it.

If anyone thinks of any other situations or can correct me on some of the above, feel free to do so.

Now I realize this must be extremely hard to code, and that there are many different situations where a flight would act differently, etc. But if P4 and the addon packs feature more and more two-seaters and early war operations, these issues will become much more important. As it is now, any two-seater except for the Brisfit is a death trap because the AI is utterly incompetent at using them, leaving the player alone.

thanks

Is that really modelled?

In my experience any 2-seater except for the Brisfit runs away whenever I hit A or H.

I'd love to be wrong, though.

I have this problem too.

I was just living with it, but there's a way to fix it I'd be delighted. I'm using an ATI Radeon.

What happens if you have both American and European citizenship? I'm a traitor then either way.

Sounds like a good idea. have fun with it.

I don't know about you guys, but it seems to me that repeatedly pressing the trigger works for me, and I get the jam out in a minute or two. It's very well done, by the way. When I repeatedly press the trigger, occasionally the odd round goes off, until all of a sudden it starts shooting again and I'm good.

so the number of AC in the flights is controled by the manager? OK then. Is it possible for me to know where the files are that control the # of planes in the flight, or is that encrypted or not easy to get at?

nice, thanks.

How is the number of aircraft within a flight assigned? Is there a simple number value in a config somewhere for it? If so, can I change it?

Hello andqui,

 

In the RFC there were usually two pilots away on leave at any one time, in quiet periods (leave was usually cancelled, I think, when an offensive was imminent), and this was managed in rotation (so, about one period of leave every two to three months). The normal leave period was 10-14 days for home leave, to allow for travelling time, but there were also shorter periods of one week or a weekend to allow for breaks in Paris, or just for rest (at the discretion on the CO, I think, and probable only in quiet periods as well). A normal 'tour' of duty for an RFC pilot was 6-9 months, but there was some discretion here also, exercised by the CO and the Medical Officer, and it would depend on how much flying/combat the pilot had experienced and any symptoms of combat fatigue or altitude sickness (often ear or sinus problems, or recurrent headaches) - a pilot arriving in a quiet period, usually in late Autum or Winter, could expect to stay somewhat longer than 6 months, whilst a pilot arriving in the Spring or Summer would most likely be sent back to Home Establishment in the Autumn or early Winter of that year.

 

A pilot sent back to Home Establishment would either join a Training Squadron as a flying instructor, or a Home Defence Squadron. These postings were usually for about 6 months, and the pilot would then be posted back to the Front (usually to a different squadron, and with promotion to Flight Commander). An RFC pilot from Canada, Australia, South Africa, etc. would usually have the option of 'Home Leave' instead of Home Establishment, and this might be followed by a stint as a flying instructor in the home country. After surviving a second 'tour' the pilot would normally be posted to a permanent training or staff post, or in some cases the command of a squadron (but squadron commanders were not expected to fly very often, if at all, on combat patrols).

 

I am not sure if this was ever made official policy, or if it just evolved, and there were probably variations on this from one unit to another, and from the early period through to the late period of the war.

 

Bletchley

just what I was looking for, thanks

Any info on the French or the Germans?

Here are the various gameplay changes and improvements I would love to see in phase 4:

Easiest (as far as I know) to implement:

1. More lone two seaters in the campaign, especially in the early period

2. More realistic German ops- Jastas should mostly stay on their side of the lines, Jastas rarely given ground attack assignments

3. Some night missions, maybe? This is mostly for two seaters, like night harassment bombing, etc.

4. More variation in the number of aircraft in a mission. As it is now, the # of aircraft in fighter flights is almost always 6-8. I know there is a workshop setting to scale it down a bit, but it would be nice if the game threw in a little more variation- sometimes there should be 3 aircraft, sometimes 7. It shouldn't be fixed at a certain number range.

5. Tying into the above, are lone wolf missions still in p3? I haven't gotten one yet. I'm OK if I don't get any as an regular pilot, but aces should definately go flying out alone sometimes, and I should be come across a lone ace sometimes in the campaign, rather than always a flight of them.

Harder to implement:

1. AI

(SORRY, for some reason it posted what I wanted to say before I had finished. I beg your pardon for the double post.)

Here are the various gameplay changes and improvements I would love to see in phase 4:

Easiest (as far as I know) to implement:

1. More lone two seaters in the campaign, especially in the early period

2. More realistic German ops- Jastas should mostly stay on their side of the lines, Jastas rarely given ground attack assignments

3. Some night missions, maybe? This is mostly for two seaters, like night harassment bombing, etc.

4. More variation in the number of aircraft in a mission. As it is now, the # of aircraft in fighter flights is almost always 6-8. I know there is a workshop setting to scale it down a bit, but it would be nice if the game threw in a little more variation- sometimes there should be 3 aircraft, sometimes 7. It shouldn't be fixed at a certain number range.

5. Tying into the above, are lone wolf missions still in p3? I haven't gotten one yet. I'm OK if I don't get any as an regular pilot, but aces should definately go flying out alone sometimes, and I should be come across a lone ace sometimes in the campaign, rather than always a flight of them.

6. Add a transfer squadron option, so we don't have to go into the game files and do it manually.

AI improvements (I realise that these are probably the hardest to accomplish):

1. The AI should be worse at seeing things. I think their vision is a bit to good, in terms of how far away they can spot things. Making them see less would result in more aircraft surviving, which is more historicaly accurate than what what we have now, which ends up in two sides fighting to the death, until one side is completely destroyed.

2. The AI should be better at deciding when enough is enough, and choosing when to run. Right now, they don't try to disengage unless they are damaged, even when they are at a disadvantage or heavily outnumbered.

3. Better ground attack code for the AI. As it is now, the AI does not survive. They keep making passes until they are dead. Aircraft should make a maximum of one or two strafing runs at the highest possible speed, dropping their bombs/rockets on the first run, and then reforming and exiting the target area quickly.

Other harder changes

1. Maybe it would be possible to track the kills/deaths of your wingmen. With the above AI improvements, this would make the AI survive longer and this would be possible to impliment without ruining gameplay due to too many of your buddies getting killed in each mission.

2. This has been discussed before, but it would be awesome if the player could be "promoted" to fly with the aces in their new planes?. I understand this would be difficult to do.

Other changes that aren't as important:

1. I'm no expert on the topography of France, but it seems to me that rivers are far too narrow, and resemble creeks and streams more than rivers. Would it be possible to make the rivers wider?

2. Realistic Le Priurs (spelling?). I know this is hardcoded too, but I'm rooting on the devs. It would be nice if it was fixable.

3. Fix the AI landing. This has already been discussed too, but it would be very important if the tracking wingmen deaths feature is implemented.

That's all I can think of. Thanks for reading, I just wanted to let the devs know what I consider the most important.

thanks

I know it differed by nation, but does anyone know how long pilots were usually on active service at the front before being given a rest? A week, a month, three weeks?

If anyone could tell me country specific, for the Germans, British, French, and American, that would be great. I'm especially interested in the french, as that's who I'm flying for now.

thanks in advance

what graphics/video card settings do you have to be at to see the reflection in the mirror? I'm running AC detail on 5 and all I see is a grey blob.

I strongly support reducing the AI sight range. It would be much more immersive, having realistic encounter rates and the like, and some o the enemy actually surviving dogfights, unlike the crazy annihilation mode we have now. It was a rare day when an entire enemy flight was destroyed with no survivors, yet it is fairly common in OFF.

hmm.. it's just strange that there is one nasty cloud type/texture/or something. I can and have had 15+ member dogfights without any stuttering of any kind, with terrain and scenery at 3. But if I look at one cloud it all falls apart.

I'll try raising the cloud detail and see if that helps

thanks

about the pup- how high is it supposed to go? I had trouble getting it past 11000

Any ideas? Most of the times, my frame rates are marvelous, no problems or stutters at all. The problem is during bad weather, with the layer of grey "blanket" way up high. When I look up at it, my frame rates drop severely, and the game stutters like crazy. Makes it very hard to shoot anything in a climbing turn. When I look level, at the ground and straight into the distance, my frame-rates are back to normal and nothing's wrong. When I look up at the grey, overcast sheet that's really high up I get the stuttering. Cloud detail is already at 1 in the config.

I'm using a 256 mb ATI Radeaon 2600.

This is the highest pending score I have ever seen:

26/8/1918 6h53 Flanders Aniche Artillery spotting Flying: Fokker DVII OAW. On this day claims: 1 camel . Dogfight with British Sopwith Camels near Lens over German lines. Spotted one on the tail of Bernhard Osterhagen and came in to intervene. Fired around 50 bullets in a high-speed pass at around 2,000 ft altitude, observed some hits on the left wing. Camel made a snap turn to the left and came on my tail, upon which Osterhagen shot it out of the air, on fire. Osterhagen and I proceeded to try and find the rest of the flight, and came upon a lone Camel. Osterhagen went low and acted as bait, and the Camel followed. I came in another high-speed diving pass from the E/A's 6 o'clock, firing. Enemy pulled up and to the right, and I followed in a climbing turn, scoring some hits. Fabric observed tearing off the lower left wing. After turn, Camel proceeded to level off, and I put around 200 rounds into the enemy from around 100 feet. Heavy smoke observed coming from the engine. Overshot, went into a loop, and came up again behind the enemy aircraft. Fired around 50 rounds, concentrating on the lower right wing root. Camel's lower right wing snapped off and the aircraft spun into the ground. The pilot was observed to jump out. The wreck is N of Lens in a field.. Witnessed by: Bernhard Osterhagen Status : Pending 100

Plus, this is with the hardest, DiD claim setting. I'm quite proud of myself.

well, during the war they wouldn't simply throw away a pilot's claims once he was dead, would they? I just want the game to decide if a kill was confirmed or not. It already does that if you're living... why not have it resolve the pending ones once your pilot dies so you get to find out.

And I know that a dead pilot wouldn't know if his kills were confirmed postmortum or not, but others would. I like to make logs and journals with my pilots, and if one of them dies with pending claims, I have no idea weather to list the kill as confirmed or not.

any chance if finding out if any of your pending claims were confirmed after a pilot has died? I had a pilot with three confirmed at six pending, and I died without knowing if he was an official ace or not?

If there's no way of doing this, how hard would it be to implement?

thanks

Does anybody have any idea on how to do it?

The camel is just as fast, is much more maneuverable, and has the same firepower. I allways get beaten.

What kind of tactics should I use? Right now I'm just trying to keep as much altitude and speed as possible.

any ideas from the Albatross drivers?

ok- I flew an Eindekker mission with Jasta 1 in 1915 and here are my comments:

1. I would really like to see the ground fire difficulty option made into a separate option again- this way I can change it to easy for the early years and not effect AI air-to-air gunnnery

2. My wingmen sometimes want to fly too fast- i.e. they pass me and then have to circle around. If I fly above a certain speed they're fine.

3. This might be the hardest one- is it possible to get the Bristol scout AI to be more proficient at using the side-mounted Lewis? In this mission I flew, I had one or two nimble Scouts parked on my butt, but not shooting at me unless it was with a snap-shot as I passed in front of the gun. It might be hard to do, but is it possible to get the Scout AI to maneuver to aim with the side-gun instead of using an imaginary front-mounted one and only shooting when the target appears in front? I really appreciate the Dev's efforts and accomplishments when it comes to the CFS AI.. and I hope I don't sound too nitpicky- but as it is I can ignore Scouts behind me because they don't maneuver to get their gun trained on me.

4. The damage model looks good. The only kill I've witnessed was where the target got hit, went into a spin and crashed. That is much better than the constant slow spiral into the ground. When I get shot down, I usually end up spinning down because I try to push my damaged crate too far and end up paying for it. I have read that some people think this happens a little too easily- I have no comment because I haven't seen enough examples. If this is true, then I hope that the death maneuver will be kept, as the spinout/crash is definately the right way to go in most cases, and only the occurance. I mean that if it's too easy, then the number of bullets needed to do it is the problem, not the way the aircraft crashes.

thanks for listening

after installing 1.26, I noticed some workshop settings had gone...

1. what happened to the AA effectiveness? In it's place is the new weapons strength option... they aren't the same thing, are they? I would like to see a separate panel for each of them.

2. What happened to the gun concentration, i.e. wide/tight/normal, both for the player and the AI rear guns. Now there are boxes for weapon strength, for main and rear guns. How would the previous settings (wide/tight/normal) be translated into the new ones (easy, normal, hard)