Ryan H

Sounds great! I had a feeling it was something like that, thanks for the re-assurance!

Today I lift a cold one in honor of my best DiD pilot: Ferdinand Boelcke (Oswald's little known cousin) . He flew with courage and perhaps a small amount or wrecklessness. The only regret he ever had was foolishly attacking a squadron he had no hope of defeating and knowing his wingmen wouldnt escape alive either... For you Ferdinand! godspeed.

I dont feel bad about posting it now (the OFF curse and all) but yes, young Ferdinand did indeed recieve the Pour le Merite flying DiD. He struggled a bit at first flying the Halberstadt, shooting down Fees but once the Albatros DII showed up he felt much more comfortable. The ocassional Bristol Scout made things interesting, even the odd Pup now and again (man those things can turn!). But alas, his luck ran out yesterday evening. It was 3 Albatrai vs. 8 Nieups (2 seperate squadrons). He spotted the first squadron low and dropped in to have a chat with them. Upon the "point of no return" he saw the other squadron... He and his wingmen gave em hell untill the very last second.

Thanks for the kind words guys. I knew the Pour le Merite was a high raking award but the other one I had no idea. I'm starting a new pilot for Britain today, flying a Pup in April 1917, RFC 46. See you in the skys soon

So its january of 1917 and I've been flying for a couple of weeks now in gross weather and I'm starting to get bored up here. Where did everyone go? I had a scramble misson the other day that I flew entirely on warp! Not a single enemy craft in sight (on a scramble?) seems strange to me. Is it the weather that keeps them all down? Whats weirder still is that my squadron mates keep getting kills/claims but I havent seen an enemy craft in weeks!? What gives?

BAH!! I cant abandon my men in the thick of it! I'll go down swingin` with the rest of them I have been flying with labels off. I think though, in this weather I'll have to turn them back on. Funny story: I decided (using time advance) to take a months leave; I come back on the 12th of Feb. and my first mission back is a scramble. My two wingmen and I against 3 Sopwith pups all flown by aces, and 4 strutters (dont know why they were attacking like that, but whatever). We were actually doing ok. We stayed low and near our aerodrome to recieve maximum help from our friendly machine gun nests. I had downed one of the pups and had my sights on another, I was in a bit of a pup sandwitch though with one of them on me like white on rice! My wingmen were trying to deal with the strutters and while watching one of them nearly run into the enemy craft I look ahead right as I run into the pup I was chasing! . So long story short: I take a months leave and my first mission back, I'm hospitalized for 17 days .

So your saying now would be a good time to take a months leave?

I fly in Jasta 2.

Welcome!! If you go into the workshop, you will find an option to change the time advance to manual, thats what I do anyways. I usually fly 5 days straight and give myselft two days off each week, sometimes, 4 days of flying and 3 days off if I'm feeling lazy

I fly with the hud off but when I make a kill, I pause, hit 'Z' and copy down that info. I suppose if your not willing to do that, you could use towns or aerodromes as landmarks, I enclude in my reports "enemy craft wreckage located about 2 miles south of Douai" or something to that effect just for extra insurance. As for altitude, I feel its important to have, and I think some planes had altimiters right? If not, I guess you'd just have to estimate or try to go without it. Good luck!

16/12/1916 12h47 Flanders Pronville Balloon Busting Flying: Albatros DII. On this day claims: 1 Nieuport 17 . Enemy craft destroyed. At 1:03 p.m. flying a balloon bursting mission we encountered a squadron of Niewport 17 craft attacking a fellow Jasta 2 airman. I engaged the nearest pilot in heavy fog and fired into his fuselage and elevators/rudder. The enemy pilot lost control and dove towards the ground. This happened at an altitude of 3769 feet, and a speed of 115 mph. Location: Latitude, 17'11, Longitude, 2'16. Witnessed by: Hans-Werner Koch, Max-Burkart von Cranz. Status : Confirmed Thats what a typical claim for me looks like. A short description of what happened, and where you shot the enemy craft. Try to avoid generalizations like: he, plane, etc; instead of "he" I use "enemy pilot" or something similar, and instead of "plane" or "aircraft" I use "enemy craft" or "allied craft". Just make sure that the person who reads the report will know what happened to whom without any question. I include the exact time, written like 1:04 p.m. , I also always include the latitude/longitude nearest the enemy crafts wreckage, written like it is above: Latitude, 44'12, Longitude, 7'89 (example). The first sentence in my claims is always: "Enemy craft destroyed", or if I'm claiming more than 1: "Multiple enemy craft destroyed." . I always include the speed and altitude at which you deal the final blow/disengage the enemy pilot. AND NEVER EVER USE A SEMICOLON!!! Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions, good luck! (P.S.) Out of 27 claims, 25 are confirmed using this method. I had to go into workshop and make sure I dint accidently click "easy claims/promotions"

Which I can understand, but in my opinion (this is not a complaint!!) I think it would be neat if you shot down an ace he was actually done. Sort of like altering history in a way. Or if an ace didnt have the nametag untill he was actually granted ace status (MvR is listed as an ace in Jasta 2 even when he had no kills). Or if you yourself was added to your squadron's ace list when you became one. Anyways, sorry to thread-jack! (again, this is not a complaint)

My best pilot recently reached 27 kills! To celebrate I gave him a custom paint-scheme on his Albatros DII; but I soon realized that now all my wingmen have that same paint! Is there any way to bypass this? Thanks guys!

Fair enough, thanks guys!

It would be really nice if this were possible as it would add to the immersion factor quite a bit (being able to fly as an ace, with your own special paint-scheme).

You could come join me in Jasta 2 (December 1916) Flying the DII! Things are getting interesting now, mostly a lot of bombers and strutters; but recently we've been comming across Nieuports and Bristol Scouts! This is getting intense! Sorry to hear about Werner and Karl Alfred :(

My most recent pilot has been doing quite well, he's over 20 hours and 12 confirmed kills! I find that I like flying for the Germans than the British for some reason. I've been wondering though, most of my 12 kills have felt pretty hollow recently, almost all of them were on either FE2b's or Strutters. The thing that I find weird is their lack of evasive manuvers; I know thats not what those craft were designed for but still... If I were flying an FE2b and I saw an Albatros start cutting down my helpless wingmen I sure wouldnt sit there and wait my turn to die! Why dont they do anything when you start shooting at them?

and if they are that fragile/defensless, why are they not escorted?

Awesome! They didnt stand a chance I'll bet!

What does the number after your claim mean, in the game files (pilotclaims.txt)? Just curiosity, thats all. Thanks!

sounds good to me . I've learned my lesson from other games not to mess with files if you dont know what they do! HAHA

Thats interesting. I'm willing to bet you're seeing the same thing I described in my "help me not suck" thread. I'm not sure about starting in the air, I always start from ground. I think it would be nice if flight 1 was flying the same mission as flight 2.

Recently I started a new campaign flying for Jasta 6, Right when they got the first Albatros (late 1916?) I've never flown for "the other side" before but I do like the way the Albatros flys. First time I set out on a flight I got ripped apart by flak; bad luck I figgured. Tried again, new pilot, same Jasta, same time. First flight, Torn apart by the damn crumpets near our front lines; frustrating. Tried again, new pilot, same Jasta, same time. Again, ripped apart by enemy fighters; you can only call it bad luck so many times!! I'm starting to get the vibe that I'm not very good at this game.. NO simulator !!! Per Olham's advice in another thread, this is not a game.. this is a simulator, so I'm starting to fly it like one; calculated decisions, dont just go rushing in guns blazing. I'm still getting shot down regularly. I recently turned off labels, and the tac. and I'm not warping either and I have to say, turning those 3 things off makes this simulator a totaly different monster! Its a lot harder when you actually have to look around to find the enemy . So my question is this: Can anyone offer any advice on how to stop getting killed? What year/months should I start in? What squadron/jasta? I'd like to get some hours behind my pilot but I'd also like a little action too. Do you all fly with traffic density on high? Any other general help/tips/tricks that you have learned would be greatly appreciated. Also, how long can you hold the trigger down before you get a jam? Thanks for the help everyone! BTW: does anyone else find it impossible to climb as fast as your wingmen when they climb to attack?

Sounds great, thanks! I just wasnt sure if flight 1 had the same mission or not (makes sense that they'd be different though).

Well, I just finished a mission (dead) where I made myself the flight leader, and I stayed with the first flight, I figgured with 7 albatroses in the air, we'd be pretty safe. Everything seemed normal, we were on a balloon attacking mission, we got about halfway and the first flight took a sharp turn to head away from our flight path, I followed. We flew for about 15 more minutes, we came across an enemy airfield, the two ace pilots decided it would be an awesome idea to dive down low (under 200 feet) across the airfield, I was stupid enough to follow. I figgured "they're ace pilots, they know what they're doing", the machine gun nests lit up like a christmas tree! firing at them, me, my wingmen, everyone. I got shot up but not to bad; after we pulled out of the dive we were attacked by some Aircos, we all started to dance (right over the airfield) and the moral of the story is that I got shot to bits by some "Sir. What-his-arse" ace and now I'm dead. So what I'm wondering is why did the A.I. aces think it would be great to swoop down (for no apparent reason) over an enemy airfield, then start a fight right then and there?! Sounds like suicide to me! (dont take this as me being mad, It just happened so I'm a bit heated/frustrated, thats all)