SirMike1983

Depends entirely on the situation:

If it's a scramble mission I just charge in because that's all you really can do. You take off and attack and hopefully land correct side up later.

That aside, I'm a rationalist--

my plane, my ammo/fuel/damage, our numbers, our altitude

weighed against

their planes, their numbers, their altitude

AI combat:

The plane type is probably the biggest factor I consider (along with whether I have ammo/damage to my plane). I'm willing to take on more Eindeckers with fewer Nieuports, for example. But if it's Nieuports vs Albatross aircraft, then I would avoid getting involved when out numbered. It's a little checklist I do before engaging, if I have the option. In some situations the choice is made for you because they're close and above. In those situations you just prepare for the attack, or dive for cover if you have friendly lines or help nearby.

OVS has a very good suggestion-- I do think more early war 2 seaters are needed. I remember the days of chasing Aviatiks in RB3d, though chasing a Roland 2 seater is much harder because they're so fast.

The early war period from 1914-1916 was marked by a great many slow, vulnerable 2 seaters. I think they'd add a nice mix to the game.

MK2,

 

British fighter sqn practice from 1915 (with the deployment of 11 Sqn on Vickers Gunbuses) was always one squadron, one type. The only time that there would be a mix would be during a transition from old to new, eg from Pup to Camel or from Camel to Snipe, _or_ on the very rare occasions when a particular ace was allowed to have his own private ac (eg Ball, Barker). I believe that French practice was broadly similar, although (from my memories of reading "Falcons of France") there might be mixes of SPAD VIIs and SPAD XIIIs.

 

BTW the Germans could still have various Albatri (and Pfalz types, esp for Bavarian jastas) mixed in with their Fokkers right up to the Armistice, though I think they did try to stick to one jasta, one type as far as possible.

 

Mike

The interesting thing is that the general wisdom was that the Albratros D.V series of aircraft (including the a variant) were actually the most numerous German scouts through most of 1918 due to dwindling production capacity for the Germans. Yeah the D.VII was there, but they struggled to produce enough.

Nieuport 24-- throw back to the old RB3d days!

I'm sure this has gotten a bit old, but I'll just put up my bump for the N.24. You could probably use the N.17 model already there as a base and modify it a bit, tweak performance, go with the Lewis+Vickers combo and that would be a nice bit of work. It'd need skins, but you might be able to use the N.17 skin again as a base and modify. This is what I used to do in RB3d to custom mod N.24s; maybe it could work here.

Nice website, I've signed up for it.

I've been out of the loop a couple of weeks because of work here being busy. When I returned tonight I found SOH had no more OFF forum and it's here now. It was VERY strange indeed to suddenly see it all moved at once with no apparent warning. What did I miss? Did SOH boot OFF or was it just getting too big or something?

I don't mean to pry, but it was a bit of a shock to be away for a little while and come back and suddenly it's all gone from one spot and moved to another.

The fora here seem much more detailed and well-divided. I liked SOH well enough and was totally shocked to see it gone tonight.