33LIMA

Thanks for the tip Pol, that will save me trying to prove the impossible - that the AI use different arcs of fire from the player, or from AI 'working with' the player, which I had just started testing for. Different impressions could be down to all sorts of factors. I did notice my plane's AI observer tended to hold fire till quite close (c.250m?) while AI observers were letting rip at about double that, but maybe this is another unreliable impression, or perhaps a function of the different gun range/accuracy settings I'm using. If it's not giving away trade secrets, Pol, may I ask which models are the AI-flown planes? I would be interested in putting some 'lead in the a**es' of the AI planes, to hold back the 'unladen weight' AI, which may or may not be how you're approaching this for P4 (no I'm not fishing, honest!. I did this a long time back, for an CFS3 add-on Bf110 that could run rings around my Hurricane, with good results, IIRC just by adding some extra weight in somewhere, I think to an AI-only version of the 110's .xdp file. A 'lead in the a**' mod would - for me, anyway - significantly improve the OFF dogfighting experience, while we wait for P4 (even if the wait isn't too long - here's hoping!). Al or player using the same arcs, as defined in the .xdp files, is the ideal situation. This means we need settings which suit players flying scouts, or which suit players flying 2-seaters, or preferably, a single set which suits both. Now I know that increasing the arcs will make 2-seaters more deadly for attackers, as well as better-defended, for those players who fly them. I appreciate there are all sorts of limits in real life which mere arcs cannot allow for. Perhaps restricting the arcs to allow for these factors, is a good idea, which then begs the question, how much? Not much if at all, I think, because (i) Workshop already gives us a way of reducing rear gun accuracy if we feel it's needed and (ii) because in most cases, player and AI-flown 2-seaters don't stunt much in combat, often flying fairly level to give the gunner a good shot. So G-forces often won't make much difference and other factors like slipstream, cold, and fatigue are universal factors, best 'subtracted' at the outset by reducing overall accuracy, rather than 'deducted' from arc of fire. Slipstream I suppose is the biggest argument for inhibiting high angles of traverse and elevation/depression, but if a gunner can elevate to 30 degrees, why not, mount permiting, depress as much, I'd say. I appreciate the OFF team has to make all sorts of design decisions for all sorts of reasons and I'm certainly not castigating or complaining about the calls made here; being a 2-seater fan I just think this is worth progressing in this particular direction, for my own enjoyment of this unique sim (or anyone else who might find it useful). I have just flown a test RE8 flight and my new arcs certainly make my gunner much more useful, while before, there were times when I might as well have been carrying the ballast that RE8's are supposed to carry if flying without an observer. So I really want to go ahead with this, as I really enjoy OFF's 2-seaters. What I think I will do is: (i) mod ALL the (tractor) 2-seaters' .xdp files to increase arcs of fire, probably to something like the RE8 mod figures, perhaps slightly reduced to avoid making gunners totally 'uber'; but perhaps not, as even these increased arcs are well within what I think a gunner could reach (except the Brisfit's traverse, which is high enough already, and in part reflects that type's own particular qualities); (ii) set the rear gun accuracy in Workshop to Medium, to see how it balances out; then (iii) if attacking 2-seaters becomes impossibly deadly consider using Low rear gun accuracy when flying scouts, and changing it to High or Normal when flying 2-seaters. For the sake of much more satisfying 2-seater missions and observers who really are worth their weight in petrol, I think I can live with (if not learn to love!) deadlier 2-seaters, having got used to First Eagles where they have good fields of fire and are very dangerous, especially in formation and especially to AI scouts who tend to attack them as if they were scouts too. They can be shot down, even from a formation, but it requires careful stalking, the caution to break hard away he moment you come under 'effective enemy fire', and if attacking a formation of 2-seaters, to do so en masse, not singly, carefully trying to damage one just enough so he lags or otherwise breaks formation, and then pick them off. But there's only one way to find out if it's viable or not so I'll give it a try over the next few days or so. If it doesn't turn out a total disaster, I'll upload the result here when it's ready, in case anyone else fancies giving it a try; tho it's easy enough to do for yourself. Thanks again for the tips, Pol, much appreciated.

1. No, not ONLY the player. They DEFINITELY control the arcs of fire, when the PLAYER is manning the gun. I have just tested this, comparing stock RE8 with my edits, and they DO change the player's arcs, when gunning. But the proposition is that they do more than this. Per BulletHead, they ALSO control the arcs of AI observers either in the player's plane, or in any plane in the player's flight (as per your points 2, 3 & 4). This, I now believe they do; confirming it is my next test. IOW the proposition is that they control player-manned, player-flown, and player-led rear guns. 2. Yes, that I believe is the proposition, supported so far by BulletHead's observations, and by the observations of those of us who, when, flying scouts, have seen AI observers firing outside the arcs in these parameters. (the hope is that the superior AI arcs are indeed set in another file; if they work by taking the figures here, and adding on something, that seems daft/unlikley, but if so, then it is going to be much harder to level up the playing field); 3.Yes; confirming this is also part of my next test. 4. As per 3 above. So far, I have been able to confirm in testing that changing the above numbers, definitely changes the observer's gun's arcs of fire, when manned by the player; and that the figures are indeed in degrees, Testing that it affects a pilot player's AI gunner, and the AI gunners in the rest of the player's flight, is next. Then testing pure, AI-only arcs of fire, to try to establish what arcs 'pure AI' use, and whether they bear any relation to these numbers, and that the AI arcs are not 'these numbers plus X', becuase then increasing these numbers could give pure AI gunners wildly unrealistic arcs of fire, and we don't want that, either. If that's safe enough, then upping these figures will help the player who's flying a 2-seater, by removing un-realistic restrictions on the arc of fire of his rear gun (whether he or AI is manning it) AND on the gunners in his flight. Well worth having I think if indeed it's possible and doesn't have any serious pitfalls or unintended consequences. We'll see. I've also discovered that the 10-degree depression limit- in the RE8 anyway - is not quite enough to stop you shooting magiclly thru your tailplane or rear fuselage, tho it does reduce the scope for it.

Yes you do, just reminded myself of the fact when I forgot to do so just now and found the 'old' settings were still in effect, then remembered I had forgot to delete the .bdp's; deleted them, and the change took effect & new .bdps were generated.

Posted this in the '2-seater campaign' thread as well as it's relevant there, too. Just to provide some background, cut and pasted below are extracts from most OFF 2-seaters' .xdp files; specifically, the sections which appear to me to define the arcs of fire of the observer/gunner. Relevant (?) lines are in bold. At bottom is the same extract for the RE8, but modded in my effort, which I'm currently testing, to increase these arcs of fire, both vertically and laterally. Note that - exactly as BulletHead had said - the Brisfit has MUCH wider arcs laterally, to the extent the observer can fire nearly 360 degrees, with but a small arc ahead 'blind'. Note also that all have MINIMAL depression - 10 (degrees) downward. I repeat - this is all untested (by me) but it corresponds to BulletHead's observations. I believe these restricted arcs may well be designed to stop the player firing, or seeing his observer firing, thru his own plane's tail or rear fuselage or wing trailing edges. I'd rather have more realistic arcs of fire, than a 'kludge' to prevent firing thru tails, because the latter seems to impose a very serious and unrealistic restriction of arcs of fire, which are not also applied to other, 'pure AI' gunners.. If this is validated, I think the resultant mod will on balance make 2-seater campaigns more realistic and more satisfying for those of us who enjoy them, by giving our observers much more realistic fields of fire, at least comparable to those already enjoyed by AI flights. As stated above, this effort is based on the observation that 'pure AI' observers in most types of plane have wider fields of fire than these limits, which apply to the player when manning a gun, and to the player's observer, and to the observers in the player's flight. The aim is to give player-manned, -flown or -led guns a wider field of fire, to correspond more closely with the superior and seemingly more realistic arcs of fire reportedly enjoyed by 'pure AI' observers. Brisfit stock <GunStation UpLimit="48" DownLimit="10" LeftLimit="162" RightLimit="162" RateLimit="46" SystemID="left_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="Y" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Lewis_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="100" Pitch=".1489" MaxAmmo="582"/> RE8 Stock <GunStation UpLimit="30" DownLimit="10" LeftLimit="70" RightLimit="70" RateLimit="46" SystemID="right_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="1" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Lewis_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch="0" MaxAmmo="873"/> Strutter stock <GunStation UpLimit="35" DownLimit="10" LeftLimit="120" RightLimit="120" RateLimit="47" SystemID="left_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="Y" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Lewis_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch=".1489" MaxAmmo="485"/> DFW stock <GunStation UpLimit="40" DownLimit="10" LeftLimit="113" RightLimit="116" RateLimit="47" SystemID="left_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="1" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Parabellum_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch="0" MaxAmmo="873"/> Hannover stock <GunStation UpLimit="35" DownLimit="10" LeftLimit="120" RightLimit="120" RateLimit="47" SystemID="left_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="1" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Parabellum_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch="0" MaxAmmo="600"/> RE8 modded <GunStation UpLimit="50" DownLimit="30" LeftLimit="90" RightLimit="90" RateLimit="46" SystemID="right_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="1" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Lewis_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch="0" MaxAmmo="873"/>

Just to provide some background, cut and pasted below are extracts from most OFF 2-seaters' .xdp files; specifically, the sections which appear to me to define the arcs of fire of the observer/gunner. Relevant (?) lines are in bold. At bottom is the same extract for the RE8, but modded in my effort, which I'm currently testing, to increase these arcs of fire, both vertically and laterally. Note that - exactly as BulletHead had said - the Brisfit has MUCH wider arcs laterally, to the extent the observer can fire nearly 360 degrees, with but a small arc ahead 'blind'. Note also that all have MINIMAL depression - 10 (degrees) downward. I repeat - this is all untested (by me) but it corresponds to BulletHead's observations. I believe these restricted arcs may well be designed to stop the player firing, or seeing his observer firing, thru his own plane's tail or rear fuselage or wing trailing edges. I'd rather have more realistic arcs of fire, than a 'kludge' to prevent firing thru tails, because the latter seems to impose a very serious and unrealistic restriction of arcs of fire, which are not also applied to other, 'pure AI' gunners.. If this is validated, I think the resultant mod will on balance make 2-seater campaigns more realistic and more satisfying for those of us who enjoy them, by giving our observers much more realistic fields of fire, at least comparable to those already enjoyed by AI flights. As stated above, this effort is based on the observation that 'pure AI' observers in most types of plane have wider fields of fire than these limits, which apply to the player when manning a gun, and to the player's observer, and to the observers in the player's flight. The aim is to give player-manned, -flown or -led guns a wider field of fire, to correspond more closely with the superior and seemingly more realistic arcs of fire reportedly enjoyed by 'pure AI' observers. Brisfit stock <GunStation UpLimit="48" DownLimit="10" LeftLimit="162" RightLimit="162" RateLimit="46" SystemID="left_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="Y" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Lewis_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="100" Pitch=".1489" MaxAmmo="582"/> RE8 Stock <GunStation UpLimit="30" DownLimit="10" LeftLimit="70" RightLimit="70" RateLimit="46" SystemID="right_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="1" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Lewis_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch="0" MaxAmmo="873"/> Strutter stock <GunStation UpLimit="35" DownLimit="10" LeftLimit="120" RightLimit="120" RateLimit="47" SystemID="left_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="Y" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Lewis_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch=".1489" MaxAmmo="485"/> DFW stock <GunStation UpLimit="40" DownLimit="10" LeftLimit="113" RightLimit="116" RateLimit="47" SystemID="left_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="1" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Parabellum_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch="0" MaxAmmo="873"/> Hannover stock <GunStation UpLimit="35" DownLimit="10" LeftLimit="120" RightLimit="120" RateLimit="47" SystemID="left_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="1" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Parabellum_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch="0" MaxAmmo="600"/> RE8 modded <GunStation UpLimit="50" DownLimit="30" LeftLimit="90" RightLimit="90" RateLimit="46" SystemID="right_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="1" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Lewis_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch="0" MaxAmmo="873"/>

Blame those dastardly Huns. It's slow work flying RE8 missions in mostly real time (I want to try out the 'Hard flak mod' too, as well as the 'Arcs of fire' mod) and the wily Jastas never showed up for the party during this morning's flight; deuced impolite of them in fact, they didn't even bother to tell me they had another engagement, very bad form. So all I can say is that the 'Hard flak' mod is producing terrific Archie barrages (the'Hard' ground guns setting increases rate of fire as well as accuracy) while the combination of Bletchley's modified flak files and a reduced blast radius edit, means it's scary but not deadly, which is how I like it. Will have to switch to QC to test the 'Arcs of fire' mod, at this rate. I'm off for a real lunch break now, then back to work, promise.

If this goes the way I think it's going, it looks like we will get the best of both worlds - many new planes, and all of them flyable. The new factor is Winder's specific enquiry here about interest in plane packs, a sort of HITR with 'just' planes (and the associated squadrons, skins etc, but little or no other stuff like terrain or Workshop upgrades). So once P4 is out, the dev's can switch the effort onto planepacks, a revenue stream for OBD and a new plane stream for us. Granted, many of the planes that won't be in P4 may be the less sexy ones, but I for one would be very interested in planepacks with such types as the Pfalx DVIII and DXII, LVG CVI, Halb CLII, AEG GIV, Roland DVI, DH9, DH4 (still hoping to see than in P4!), BE2e, AW FK8, Martinsyde Elephant, Vickers gunbus, FE8, Salmson 2A2, Br14, Voisin 5, a Letord or a Caudron, even the unloved 'Bloater...as you know, there are so many, and a judicious mix in each pleneset of sexier and less sexy planes would help keep sales up.

Just grabbed the RE8 pre-order which is still at the reduced price of $8.99, plus the Pup and the Tripehound, the latter pair a snip at $2.99 each.

Wow! The Voisin 5 is a really compact, angular but neat little plane, and is a great addition to FE's early war planeset. Great work there, once again!

Update: Well I made the above edits to all 6 RE8 .xdp files and deleted the .bdp files. To recap, the edits were: 'increasing uplimit from 30 to 50 and the downlimit from 10 to 30.................... also increasing the left and right limits from 70 to...90, to give increased traverse as well. ' And the results...well I should have done a 'before' flight for comparison, but from 2 QC flights of 4xRE8s led by me against 4x Alb DII's, here's what I think I can see. 1. manning the Lewis gun myself, I now get arcs of fire which look to correspond exactly to the changed values in degrees - ie plus 50 degress elevation, minus 30 depression (where zero=level), and 90 degress left and right (where zero = fully aft). They certainly do not correspond, in degress anyway, to the former values. So the edit appears to have taken effect. 2. with this, I tried to shoot off my own tailplane and rear fuselage and the rounds went thru without damaging anything, and carried on (IIRC CFS3 has always had certain minimum ranges under which the rounds have no effect, possibly specifically to prevent gunners hitting their own aircraft). I suspected that before I had seen some AI 2-seaters fire thru their rear fuselages, like Gothas. This may be why; ie like BulletHead said, pure AI gunners have wider arcs than player-manned, player-flown, or player-led gunners, because the latter's arcs were restricted to avoid making the absence of self-damage that results, visible to the player. I think there should not be a difference between AI-only gunners, and gunners in the player's plane and flight, so whatever is best should apply to both. What's sauce for AI, should be sauce for player. I do need to have another, longer go at shooting off my tail tho, as I fly with hi-res skins and it may be I didn't try quite hard enough. But I saw no damage, nor any damage effects eg debris, and I did put a good few rounds into the tailplane and rear fuselage; even I could not miss, at that range. 3. cannot yet say if the AI-flown RE8s in my player-led flight benefitted too; maybe; hope so, just too soon to say 4. my gunners ammo runs out too fast - no way has he fired anything like 8x97*-round drums; must look into this, too, I thought Lewis-armed planes had the full ammo load, in effect loaded into the drum that's fitted, as proper drum changes are not possible. *RoF figure, can't find anything else at the mo The original arcs were possibly put in to prevent a player-manned rear gun being visibly able to fire thru parts of your own plane - I say this, because my new arcs bring the rear fuselage, fin/rudder, tailplane/evevators and trailing edges of the wings into my arc of fire, while the stock arcs look to have been specifically designed to prevent this. I would much rather have it as it is now (with my edits) and rely on myself avoiding 'abusing' the ability to fire thru tailplane etc, than have my arcs of fire (and that of my flight mates) seriously curtailed, below what's available for 'pure' AI gunners. Another minor downside is that the gunner figure doesn't crouch or otherwise adjust his stance as the gun elevates and depresses, so at the higher/lower gun angles he doesn't look quite right in external view, at least from angles/ranges where this is visible. Again, a small price to pay. I need to fly with this for a while to test it out, obviously. I think I will increase the traverse angles again, from 90 (stock, 70) up to about 120, so player gunners and player-flown or -led gunners can shoot slightly ahead of 90 degress left and right. and see how that goes. If it still seems good, then I will extend it to other 2-seaters I fly or plan to (which means all of them, except the current fixed-gun BE2c, as this doesn't need it). As I didn't check the angles before I made the edits, it's possible all this is exactly as it was before! However, Bullethead evidently knows his stuff, and he was clear that player-manned, led or flown guns could mostly not reach the angles my RE8's Lewises can now reach. It is still a mystery to me tho, how it could be that pure AI gunners could achieve angles beyond the ones in these files. I do know that their FMs ignore weights for fuel, ammo and maybe pilot, so there is a precedent of sorts, for this sort of thing Will report back in due course. Wait out.

I would be seriously interested in hand-editing into player-flown or player-led planes the less-limited fields of fire enjoyed by the 'AI only' ones, for the sake of bringing their current dismal performance up to that of the the 'AI-only' gunners, which I think should be the case. Any idea where one might find the parameters to change the 'human-tainted' gunners, so they operate like the AI-only ones? There is some stuff on gunner positions in each plane's .xdp files. Unlike CFS3, there seem to be 6 versions of each plane, suffixed _QC1, _SQ1-4 and _Sqd. From looking at two of the .xdp files for the RE8, the section for the Lewis in all of these seems to be the same, as below; this looks like where the relevant limits are set. <GunStation UpLimit="30" DownLimit="10" LeftLimit="70" RightLimit="70" RateLimit="46" SystemID="right_guns" Tracer="40" Trainable="1" Trigger="0" Type="OFF_Lewis_air_obs" Name="Rear Gun" ConvergeDistance="0" Pitch="0" MaxAmmo="873"/> Assuming they are indeed the figures which limit gunner traverse & elevation, and assuming they are also the ones which affect player-flown or led planes...well, I don't know what the figures for up, down, left and right limits are in - maybe or maybe not degrees - but either way, it may be significant that the 'uplimit' is no less than 3 times the 'downlimit'. So perhaps making the 'downlimit', say, 20, would help, or increasing uplimit from 30 to 50 and the downlimit from 10 to 30, that sort of thing. Maybe also increasing the left and right limits from 70 to, say, 80 or 90, to give increased traverse as well. I could try this but it would help if anyone can tell me (a) whether these are indeed the relevant settings and (b) whether I need to make any changes to all 6 'clones' of a 2-seaters .xdp files. I expect I need to delete the .bdp files afterwards too, and let them be regenerated based on the new .xdp file. If this works, it could be a mod of interest to all of us who play 2-seater campaigns, but are on poor terms with our observers due to their reluctance to earn their pay, especially if the rear-seaters in the squadron's other flights can do a lot better.

Maybe we should approach this from a different direction...how about: Fearsome Enemies, Cruel Killers: Over Flanders Fields ...on second thoughts, scrub that one; it was Father Jack's idea, anyway.

For the symmetry freaks out there: Over Flanders Fields: Flying Fighters Overhead OFF:FFO

Interesting discussion, this. I had very much the same impression - of adequate fields of fire - as mightysrc and Hasse, tho my recent (very limited) Workshop-CFS3-QC tests seemed to point the other way. So now I'm left wondering. But I do remember with total certainty attacking formations of Strutter 2-seaters in several missions, from about 20 degrees or more below the formation and getting very thoroughly shot at by the observers of my target and his flight-mates, while they were still flying level; their fields of fire were at least adequate. So they can shoot low, in at least some circumstances and/or planes. Re the BE2c, as the OFF BE has that fixed forward-firing Lewis (thru the prop disc- unsynchronised? - a very rare mounting in real life) I would expect no return fire to the rear, and don't remember receiving any when attacking BE2s, either, so it's the mounting not the field of fire that's the blocker, for the BE.

Well on the basis only of one or two QCs against some 2-seaters, all I went up against do indeed seem to have very little depression on the rear guns. I did get some firing at me below horizontal, from where I could just see the undersides of their wings, but anything beyond that they did not engage and reverted to facing aft. Tried this with the DFW, Hannover, F2B and the RE8, same result. It was hard to be sure as the CFS3 QC dogfight option has the 2-seaters stunting and it was hard to formate just behind and below to one side where the gunner should have been able to engage. But with the Hannover in particular I was able to formate on him for quite a while behind, below and to port or starboard and he did not fire, even tho I tried to give him a decent target, but at few degrees depression. I appreciate with the Parabellum, to use it properly you should have the butt in your shoulder so would have to stand tall or stand on something with that high-sided Hannover cockpit in particular. But even so, it was used for ground attack!

Yeah, it's not been my experience either, Olham, that 'many' OFF observers' can't depress their weapons and engage. You think you've seen it happen with RE8s (glad to hear it, that's what I'm flying now!), I think I've seen it with Strutters. Must fly a few QCs against F2Bs, CLIIs and DFWs, to see if they are limited in this way.

This is why the greatest need for the OFF planeset is 1915-16 German and French 2-seaters, which we'll get in P4 with the Morane parasol and the Aviatik CII, both really excellent choices, especially the former as it saw RFC/RNAS service too (even German, as the Pfalz A type). At that point, a 1915-15 Entente scout campaign will become viable. Scout campaigns for any period before 2-seaters are available are a waste of time IMHO. A bigger problem for RoF (I won't say 'the other sim', as there two 'other sims' ie FE as well) which has few 2-seaters and zilch before late '16 (DFW) and mid-'17 (F2B, Br14, RE8 will help but still 'nada' for 1915 and nearly all of 1916). Then (I've said it before and I'll say it again) OFF needs a 1917-18 French 2-seater (Br14 A & B preferably), a DH4 and another, later-war German 2-seater (Rumpler CIV coming but no sign yet of the former two much-needed gap-fillers).

Re 2-seater fields of fire, I may be mixing up my sims but I have a fairly clear recollection of an OFF Strutter rear gunner firing as I approached from below (about 30 degrees depression) in an Albatros and seeing the tracers pass close by me, to the extent it was like they had a Gotha-style trapdoor or tunnel. I remember thinking, 'I know you can do a lot with a Scarff ring, but this is ridiculous!'

One of the things I like about OFF is the effort, seemingly rare in sims these days, to present you with something resembling your pilot's log book, in the classic style of European Air War and Red Baron 3d. I noticed you can overtype and generally hand-edit the text you see in your 'dossier'/logbook, both logbook entries and claims; but the edits aren't being saved - they're still there when I close it but upon next inspection, it's back to what it was, typos and all. I'd really like to be able to save (as well as make) my edits after each mission, not so much to correct typos, but to add my own notes, just like you would do in real life. To include the sort of remarks you might make, I'm sure you know what I mean - not 'War and Peace', just something like 'Really hairy scap over Arras with some hot Huns - saw poor old Mortimer go down in flames'. I suppose you can insert what you want in kill claim descriptions but that's not the same, not least as it doesn't apply to ordinary, 'non-claim' logbook entries. Such an ability would add a whole new dimension to the OFF logbook. After my last mission in a 34 Sqdn RE8 campaign I hand-edited my pilot dossier text file (in Campaigns/CampaignData/Pilots, IIRC) because I particularly wanted to record the unusual (for me!) achievement of managing to plant two 112-lb bombs right on top of the train sheds we were attacking, but it would have been so much easier and neater if I could just have done that in-game, while viewing the 'dossier'/logbook. It's all the more tantalising, that I can edit the text but not save it. I don't suppose anyone has found a way of writing up your pilot dossier/logbook file and saving it, without having to exit or tab out to Windows? I don't think fiddling about with Windows file permissions would help. Maybe this will come with P4 if it can't be done now.

Thanks Olham i'll prent some of those off

I'd found it frustrating, flying German especially, staring at a really large area of sky filled with Archie puffs and because the spread was so wide (horizontally and vertically) not being able to make out the enemy planes until they were too close. Are they above me? Below me? Same level? And crossing left to right, or vice-versa, coming or going? Because the burst pattern is so wide and constantly changing, it's hard to determine the 'Mean Point of Impact' and how it's moving. So in Workshop I adjusted ground gun effectiveness to 'Hard', where I'd had it on easy (like others, I'd always hated IL2's rather lethal ground gunnery). This had precisely the desired effect - it produced much tighter groupings of bursts, so you could make out bearing, range and heading of an approaching enemy even before you could see the planes, and then pick out the planes themselves, in good enough time to make sensible tactical decisions. A big plus in WW1 aircombat, especially. No need to use any game aids, so more realistic, too. When being 'Archied' myself, this also produced a much more visceral (if not at times downright scary) experience; the feeling of being under a pretty savage bombardment you could do little about except throw in some evasive action and pray. The only problem is that even if you get used to that, Archie is no longer quite so harmless, and gradually causes casualties which stack up the longer your flight is engaged, more than it should I think. So I extracted just the two Allied and German flak files from Benchley's 1917 campaign mod from the OFF downloads here at CombatAce (I like the whole mod but don't use it at present as I'm too lazy to swap mod versions to suit sectors/eras) and installed just these two files - they reduce the effectiveness of these apparently WW2-era shells to more realistic WW1 level. Now, Archie is still fierce, but less dangerous, just as it should be from the many pilot accounts. And he's a much better pointer to the enemy, without resort to 'radar'/TAC or labels. I have tried the 'Medium' setting too but I find 'Hard' significantly better across the board. Have still to find out if the ground MG fire is too hot at these settings, in which case I may need to do some more tweaking, or just follow the briefings and stay well clear of ground MGs! But for now, I'm very pleased with the results, in terms of the effects I've just mentioned. Worth trying, if you're not already.

Didn't all the DVIII's have a small DVII-type fin, even the V26 and other prototypes? quite small in relation to rudder sizer tho. No dihedral on the wings probably also helped. Anyway, speaking of turns, while I was on hols I read the luridly-titled (for the paperback edition) but rather good 'Fighter Aces of WW1' by Joshua Levine and in the many first-hand accounts, there are some from student pilots, including some who were trained during even early-wartime ab initio civilian flight school training, to turn with rudder only, and to avoid banking at any cost, this bad habit only being corrected during later RFC training. One of the many reasons I think super-AI, who fly their planes to the limit, obey all orders efficiently, are at least adequate shots, and never make serious mistakes, would be less than entirely realistic, especially in WW1, barring the few really experienced pilots in each squadron. I'm quite happy often encountering what McCudden termed 'dud Huns' (or 'dud Lords' if flying for the other side). And am not at all interested in the claims of MP players about the superiority of flying against fellow humans - whose flying is polished without regard to the need to get pilots to the front quickly, enconomise on petrol etc and is, moreover, entirely untroubled by freezing cold or anoxia, let alone by any threat of imminent death. Give me half-decent 'bots', any day.

Another nice one there Olham! I scanned and uploaded the extract from Jasta 34b's CO Robert (later Ritter von) Greim's logbook but it's only moderately clear in the book (Pen & Sword's Airfields and Airmen - Cambrai'). fair when scanned, but downright fuzzy when uploaded:

Dunno, but this is what the Wikipedia article on Anti-aircraft warfare' has to say, might be some pointers worth following up: 'The British dealt with range measurement first, when it was realised that range was the key to producing a better fuze setting. This led to the Height/Range Finder (HRF), the first model being the Barr & Stroud UB2, a 2-metre optical coincident rangefinder mounted on a tripod. It measured the distance to the target and the elevation angle, which together gave the height of the aircraft. These were complex instruments and various other methods were also used. The HRF was soon joined by the Height/Fuze Indicator (HFI), this was marked with elevation angles and height lines overlaid with fuze length curves, using the height reported by the HRF operator, the necessary fuze length could be read off.[20] However, the problem of deflection settings — 'aim-off' — required knowing the rate of change in the target's position. Both France and UK introduced tachymetric devices to track targets and produce vertical and horizontal deflection angles. The French Brocq system was electrical, the operator entered the target range and had displays at guns; it was used with their 75 mm. The British Wilson-Dalby gun director used a pair of trackers and mechanical tachymetry; the operator entered the fuze length, and deflection angles were read from the instruments.[21][22] The German Krupp 75 mm guns were supplied with an optical sighting system that improved their capabilities. The German Army also adapted a revolving cannon that came to be known to Allied fliers as the "flaming onion" from the shells in flight. This gun had five barrels that quickly launched a series of 37 mm artillery shells.[22/22' The last two references are to this book, which sounds reasonably authoritative Routledge, Brigadier NW. 1994. "History of the Royal regiment of Artillery – Anti-Aircraft Artillery 1914–55". London: Brassey's ISBN 1-85753-099-3

Thanks for the vote of confidence SRC tho I fly with the AI set to 'less agressive' and my victim's victim may even have winged him before I delivered the coup de grace. It did help a bit that I switched to the F6 gunsight view as I usually don't but as you know, otherwise that airscoop over the RE8's engine means you can see Sweet Fanny Adams of where your rounds are going, and not much else besides. Don't know what came over me, I was on a 'high' after Miracle #1 (getting 2 out of 2 112-lb bomb hits), then got rather cross at seeing a wingie - sorry, flightmate, must stop using those WW2 terms - shot down and the Red Mist came down, leading to Miracle #2, an even bigger one than the first miracle. Can't wait to see if the kill is confirmed. As for forward visibility, unless the P4 BE2's observer can sit down when he's not gunning, the view ahead from that will be a lot worse, roughly equating to that from Lindberg's Spirit of St Loius. I can see why the P3 BE2 gives you the (unsynchronised) Lewis. As for flak, box barrages fair enough, but the idea that it would rely rely mostly on blast, rather than as I'd suppose fragmentation damage (from shell fragments, after the move away from shrapnell), sounds a bit unlikely to me, tho I'm no Gunner. As for the lethality of flak generally, it could certainly be dangerous to those below unless they took shelter, even in WW1. Alexander McKee in 'The Friendless Sky' says that Churchill complained in the House of Commons - must look that up in Hansard! - that a third of the casualties in the Zeppelin raids were caused by AA shell splinters, indicating that instead of taking shelter, many civilians were out in the open, spectating, despite the supposed morale effects of the raids. As for the target aircraft, even in WW1, German Gotha and Gigant losses directly or indirectly attributable to AA were, from what I read, not insignificant, in relation to the number of sorties flown. In Profile Publication's 'The Gotha GI-GV', Peter M Grosz provides a little table of Boghol 3's losses of GIV's and GV's, citing figures from the research of Major Raymond Fredette for 'The Sky on Fire' (US title) or ''the First Battle of Britain 1917-18' (UK title): Lost to fighter attacks - 9 Lost to AA fire - 12 Engine failure over England - 1 Crashes in Belgium - 36 Missing - 3 In WW2 I doubt Luftwaffe crews attacking London at night were untroubled by the AA fire, even tho few planes may have been destroyed compared to rounds fired.