TaillyHo

Indeed - 2 weeks leave is an entirely realistic scenario in advance of your pilot completing his transfer to a new squadron. You may have a real dilemma soon - chosing whether to fly your S.E5 pilot or your D.V pilot each time you boot up OFF!

Yes, it's very easy to 'transfer', my friend. Go into your game folder/campaign data/ pilots and find the right Pilot Dossier text file (this is actually the hardest step in the process!!). Make a note of the pilot number you normally select for that pilot in OFF itself, and then look for that number +1 in the 'Pilots' folder. You'll see straight away when you open the file whether its the correct pilot or not - just make sure you have the right guy before you make any changes! Making a copy of the 'Pilot Dossier' file and sticking it on your desktop before you make the change is a good idea too (just in case in all goes pear-shaped). Once you have opened the file you want, one of the first few lines will show the Jasta # he is currently flying for. Simply change that number to whatever Jasta you wish him to transfer to. Save and exit. The only thing you can stuff up is if you try to transfer him on a date prior to when that Jasta was established. In that case you'd either chose a different Jasta, or 'time advance' your man a bit further thru the war until you get to the establishment date for the new Jasta, then transfer. Personally, I'd feel if I couldn't transfer my pilot within a short period of whatever his current serving date is, it would probably be better to start a new pilot in the other Jasta - but hey, that's just me. In the scenario you mention, I'd do some research in OFF (as if you were going to enlist a new pilot) to see which Jastas already have whatever plane you want to fly (and/or which ever region you want to fly in); or which Jasta will be the first to get it. Good luck - hope you can re-invigorate your campaign, Shiloh!

Well you can have your cake and eat it too in this regard if you do a bit of research and then transfer your long time (and getting boring) pilot to a new squadron (equipped with a different aircraft). You get this right and it's effectively the same as starting a completely new campaign - only you get to carry over your existing rank, medals and reputation! Of course, it can go very badly - as it did for my 30 something hour F.E2b pilot (Pixton) last night. I decided to translate his pusher experience to an outright fighter context and move across Bertanges (East to West) to join Lanoe Hawker's 'elite' '24 squadron and fly DH.2s!! All very exciting stuff - I was itching to fly the plane AND fire the gun again after all those hours of being an aerial chaffeur for my F.E2b observer/gunner . . . On a balloon-bust mission first-up, my flight of 5 get bounced by 4 Einies. I concentrate on flattish turns and positioning for a while, but then chase an opponent in a steep dive - lose him - over-rotate in the dive and only just get it pulled out in time - find myself with two Einies in close proximity - get shot-up fairly badly and my engine is damaged - stall due to lack of engine power, and spin in - captured - POW for the remainder! . . . end of story.

Gee Wayfarer, you've done well to avoid the OFF Albs until Jan 1917! They shoudl've started to appear from mid-Sept. 1916. Are you flying a R.E8 these days, or still the B.E2 (sorry, I can't recall). Good luck, in any event!

Gee Shiloh - that looks pretty dramatic! Hope you are only briefly dis-located and all is well again soon for you and yours. Best wishes to anyone else here caught in the line of fire (er, or water even)

My new Jasta 19 pilot, doing a (rare, for me) bit of mid-air surgery . . . .

Great stuff, Lederhosen.

Indeed, the luxury of a spare 'stick button for pausing would be most handy for pics. I know what you mean re: self-control posting pics. As I don't know how to generate the multi-shot postcard/montages like Olham and others post, I usually limit myself to one pic per report - that way I have to chose the 'best' of the 3 or 4 I may have taken that mission. You are certainly getting some good ones - keep it up! ps. I actually like the boomerang better than the kangaroo on your S.E5 - always something overdone about kangaroos (you know - Qantas, Australia II, boxing kangaroos etc etc), IMHO.

Great pic, Mack - that certainly would get your attention!

Nice pics in your S.E5, Smiley - I especially like the 4th one in the series - where you capture the moment the engine block is blown clear of that DFW. You must have good reflexes to make that kill and get the pic at almost the same moment!

Mack, I've been flying my Albatros campaigns using the personal skin option, but then switching it off for my entente pilot campaigns. Yes, you lose the fuel management, but if you select longer distance missions, and do 2 laps of your field first it's not so bad. I'm dreading a scramble mission on full tanks (!) Hopefully it's a trade-off we won't have to make in P4.

Looks interesting, Lederhosen . . . what happens next?

Good to hear - and yes, Rolands are a far more dangerous opponent than the more common Einie. Carry on, Dobbs!

RFC-12 is a bomber squadron. I did see there was a Bristol Scout available for one bomber squadron (RFC-13, I think) that you can fly for a whole 1 day before they're re-equipped with Bees. Very strange the Devs bothered with that detail.

Nice work, Smiley. Is that the same pilot you started up a couple of weeks back? Good to see you're getting in nice and close - you need to with the rather modest load-out the Bebe has, eh! Look forward to your future reports - with pics!

The thrill of the chase . . . .

Bad luck there, Javito. I've never used warp on account of reading lots of weird (often bad) things that can happen. Maybe you just added another one.

Not sure you're doing a lot to perpetuate the brave ANZAC traditions there, Hood (!) . . . but there is some wisdom - and some comedy - in what you say. Nice to see another Aussie on the forum - I seem to have been flying the flag alone for the last few months. Yes, I know that feeling too, Javito - that's where having 2-3 pilots on the go at any one time gives you the option of chosing a less established one when you feel tired or distracted - ensuring you feeling good about it before you load up your main-man! Good luck! I look forward to reading about the return of Joyce.

So will you try Bletchley's mod for that era, Lou? Life at #4 will be very quiet until June 1915 when the Einies come out to play. Good luck!

My condolences, Lou. Kooksy's was an inspirational campaign and he joins a small band of elite airmen flying the eternal high-level patrol. I'm sure very few of us have had pilots with anywhere near 200 hours service. To Kooksy!

You can chose to start a little later with #56 - ie. after that first period when they are still in England. When you enlist and you've brought up a particular squadron, there are left and right clickable buttons about 1/4 way down the right side info column. Click the right one of these and it will cycle through time periods for that squadron (sometimes just a few days, other times weeks or even months). You can see when they moved locations, changed planes etc etc. I think you'll only need to click it once to get #56 out of England and over to France. THEN your chances of encountering EA will increase significantly! Can't help you with your screenshot question, but yes that does look like a graphics setting hiccup of some description. Good luck!

I'm considering transferring one of my OFF pilots between his current RFC squad and a RNAS one, but don't recall having read about anyone who actually did this in real life. Just wondering if any of you well-read types (Dej?, Lou?) can enlighten me on this question? Cheers!

Is this the one you're after, Carrick old bean? http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1913/1913%20-%201344.html http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1913/1913%20-%201345.html

Ok then gents, it would seem such transfers were so rare as to be non-existent. Yes, Dej - I agree it would be hard to imagine why you'd want to go RNAS to RFC, but possibly more motivation to go from RFC to RNAS (which is what I wanted for my pilot). Many thanks to all who replied!

Thanks Elephant, I'm chuffed to get positive feedback from people like you - and Olham and Shiloh - who know a whole lot more, and go to a lot more trouble than me on your pics.