33LIMA

Wow - another much-needed addition/update to the FE plane set - not many left now! Thanks!!!

Amen to all of the above! I have been an avid reader of WW1 airwar books and lore from Biggles, to Arthur Gould Lee, to Revell, van Wyndgarden et al, and while I miss some of RB3D's little trimmings (like the logbook and the 'guy jumping over the fence' escape video clip, no WW1 sim I have ever played does such a good job of bringing to life the experience of leading a patrol and the thrill of air-to-air combat, as described by those who knew it best, as FE/FE2.

Wow! Fabulous!

Great stuff! Off to grab the new version now - thank you Stephen!!!

No takeoff problems here. Only issue is that from the cockpit view, with the light from certain angles, it is apparent that the 'wagon wheel'/barrel support frame at or near the front of the fretted barrel jacket appears superimposed on the outer, side-stays of the barrel jacket itself, instead of the stays being superimposed on the 'wagon wheel' thingy. A minor point - these new birds from Stephen are a great addition, just the thing for bringing to life the early days of the Jastas. Brilliant!!!

Great plane and many thanks again Stephen! This is definitely one of the planes that FE has needed most, leaving aside personal preferences and going by relative importance - a replacement for Bort's worthy but basic version, that is up to the latest standards! Bravo! Briliant! A much more enjoyable Jasta 2-type campaign is now on the cards - at last! Manna from Heaven, this one! That now leaves 'what FE needs most' as a 1916-17-era BE2c (or BE2e) like this: ...because (i) it is a really MAJOR type and (ii) the A Team versions are strictly 1914-15 configuration, in most key respects. It's the biggest remaining gap in FE's 'home front', worthy of filling ahead of less common or more obscure planes or theatres. Just thought I'd mention that, in case anyone's interested :)

Yup Geezer that was me; RL stuff (plus finding out from 'South of Hill 112' that the AI couldn't cope with what the mission editor seemed to indicate was possible) sort-of ended my interest in good old Panzer Elite (tho I may get back into it soon, with PE-X/PE3 having added 'time of flight' at last). Those pics display an impressive Orbat for both sides (tho being ex-PE, you surely MUST have a Matilda for this, somewhere?).

Sounds interesting, too little is widely known of Operation Compass and an FE-based mod would be good to see. Gladiators are rather rotund but CR32s and 42s are neat biplanes. The screenies don't display for me tho, all I'm seeing is 'attachment=[filename]'.

A few new pairs of underpants needed after that first shot, assuming it didn't end in a fireball! Nice skin on the Pfalz, too!

Great work Panama! Looking forward to trying this out when I get back from my hols/vacation! Another big step forward for FE!

Agree 100% Panama. I too had noticed the microstruters appearing in SF2 Europe (but not in FE2) and finding that they seemed to co-incide with radio calls, had not realised they were a result of a patch! The way SF2 was going, with settings being more locked down, it's maybe no bad thing that FE2 has been unpatched for a while. FWIW I'm not too worried about FE's future. On balance it's the best of the current crop of WW1 air combat sims and seems likely to remain so. RoF will never have FE's planeset or its mod-ability, possibly likely never some of FE's other superior features. And it still remains to be seen how successful OFF P4/WOFF will be, in remedying the underlying (often CFS3 legacy) issues which cost it the crown in my experience. With the sim market going the way it has, it's not clear whether we'll ever see replacements (or whether if they do arrive, they'll really be better except graphically - as with CloD. We all have our lists of the coree features we'd like to see improved in FE/FE2 - like changing campaign weather, wheel rumble, no ghosting thru ground objects, more ground activity (especially barrages), balloons hauled down under attack, the ability to set the enemy AI to 'Hard' without making life to hard for your flightmates, the ability to fly as gunners, and some more RB3D or EAW-style features like a decent pilot logbook. And some still-needed planeset additions or upgrades, like a real 1916-17 configuration BE2 or an improved Albatros DII. Fokker DIII or Martinsyde Elephant. Some of which will never happen, others the modders may be able to sort. But on balance I think FE2 is more than good enough, as well as best of breed, just as it is now. Anything more, is icing on the cake. The aircraft and terrain models, skins and animations are nearly in the RoF league, the AI is generally very good, the wingie commands are good, the effects good, the FMs and DMs totally belie the 'sime lite' tag and are better than OFF and on balance as good as RoF IMHO. You can lead, fly and fight with every visual aid turned off, and the padlock and view system are top-notch. Short of the introduction of genuine virtual reality systems I reckon FE2 is about as good as it gets. So I think the thing that will best ensure its future is not FE3, or support from TW, but the mod community doing two things: 1. As I have tried to do, taking the opportunity to make it clear in 'sim land' that FE is no sim lite, but a great all-rounder and at least a strong contender for best of breed award; 2. as others have already done and hopefully will continue to do so, find ways of making as many as we reasoably can of the little improvements or tweaks that will fill in some of the gaps or overcome some of the limitations that still exist.

FWIW I think the idea of just taking a screeenie of your target area is fine - provided it isn't the massive hedgehog of Spiney's forum name :). But - altho 'mission success/failure is an overdone concept in flightsims, and in FE doesn't affect campaign play to much if any extent - it could also be a good feature to have that little extra bit of feedback, with 'mission susccessful' indicating that you had actually got a decent photo of the mission objective, and not the field next door.

Nice pics indeed, what a great job that NZ outfit does!

Work of Art, there, Quack, looking forward to these (and the USAS N28's)!

Hi and wellkommen! As Panama says, many mods are made for First Eagles ('FE1') or First Eagles Gold rather than First Eagles 2. These FE1 mods will nearly all work in FE2 (except for some clouds and other mods -I think FE2 uses a different particle system). But to get them to work, you have to install them in a different folder - which players call the 'mod' folder, tho that is not its real name! This is explained here: http://combatace.com...the-mod-folder/ For some planes designed for FE1, you also have to copy some files into a 'decals' folder. This is explained in the readmes for the planes made by stephen1918, which have instructions for installation in both FE1 and FE2. If you don't do this, the plane is fine but some or all markings do not appear. The mods I would recommend are: 1. all the World War 1 add-on planes here at CombatAce; 2. all the WW1 addon planes at A Team Skunkworks http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/ - you MUST register to get access to the real download page and you MUST take SPECIAL care to read AND follow their strict download rules; 3. Peter01's set of Flight Model mods (for use with the 'Hard' Flight Model setting, in 'Options', which is recommended), available here at CombatAce. Some add-on planes are built only for the relaxed 'Normal' flight model setting and need this mod to fly right, if you use the better 'Hard' setting (note that Peter01's FM mod also significantly reduces the effectiveness of rear gunners; I didn't like this and have hand-edited these back to the original values, which make gunners quite scary and dangerous, but manageable with care); 4. the Flanders terrain, and the Bloody April campaign to go with it, here at Combatace; 5. Ojcar's Armchair Aces campaigns (here at CombatAce) and the mods that he recommends in the readme for these (some available here, some at the A Team Skunkworks); Also, whatever other mods you like! I like the default FE2 terrain which looks very like what I see, when I look out my windows at the countryside here in Northern Ireland. But I know many prefer Jan Tuma's terrains. I also like the dramatic effect of the cloud mods discussed in this thread, which also illustrate some of the add-on planes: http://combatace.com...il2-clouds-fe2/ It can take a LONG time to get FE2 modded and all the mods working right, but it is very well worthwhile; so be patient, take your time, and back up your downloads! Because it is especially good at dogfighting and patrol-leading, and can be played at 'Hard' settings with all the on-screen aids turned off (hit Ctrl+D twice to clear the screen and use the 'Hard' difficulty settings on everything except enemy skill, as the latter makes them too deadly for your wingmen) and also because of all the mods which give it by far the greatest planeset and campaign variety, FE2 is the best of the current trio of WW1 air combat sims.

Close to the Front Just this side of Hunland France 1st April 1917 Dear Auntie Mary Please do excuse the shaky handwriting as this letter is penned in no little excitement, having just got back to our little aerodrome 'somewhere in France' after quite the most amusing show I've been on since coming out here last week. As I think I mentioned in my last letter, I got a Flight of my own right away because of my good record with my previous squadron, in France last year. Things have changed quite a bit here since then, and not all for the better. You have probably heard all about the jolly Red Baron and his merry crew by now but we don't let that worry us a bit as we have a job to do and we just get on with it regardless. We two-seaters are the ones who do the real work over here and the chaps in my new squadron are all absolutely first-rate, the salt of the earth. Well, that bold statement was put to the test today, even though we never met any Huns in the air; sometimes waiting for them to appear can be more a strain on the old nerves than when they do show up, when one tends to have no time to think, let alone worry. We started off well; lovely weather, not too warm but not much cloud about either. I led off, and soon had Gibson, Sanders and Wallace in a neat gaggle - if there is such a thing as a neat gaggle! - just beyond my left wingtip. Each of us had two rather large bombs slung beneath our kites, for our plan was to park some of these in the laps of some Huns just behind the Front, where we knew they were concentrating around a bridge. Normally our Gunners would make short work of this sort of target but for whatever reason we got the job of fanning down these Huns - I should explain that while Gunners may blow things up, in the Flying Corps, we don't, we fan them down! Our planes - Harry Tates we call them, can't say more as they are quite new types and all rather secret - looked rather smart in the bright sunshine and I think we all felt really brave. Anyhow, we flew down behind our side of the Lines, intending to dash quickly over at a couple of thousand feet, drop our eggs, then dash back over again, using the river which cuts across No-man's Land at that point as our guide. As we reached the appointed spot, I swung my crate around to the left and lined up her nose with the bridge, in our target area, which I could clearly make out over in Hunland. Now, this is where the thrill of anticipation comes in. You know the enemy are just ahead and below, towards the far side of that muddy brown belt of ground where lie the trenches of both sides. You know, or at least you fully expect, that down there, beneath many a pickelhaube, many a pair of Teutonic eyes is watching your four little specks coming their way, and that Archie, as we call the guns which shoot at us airmen, is manning his weapons and training his barrels along our line of flight, not to mention the machine guns in the ground who will gladly have a pop at us as we go. For we are quite low now, as I nose down to pick up a bit of speed, both to give us a better chance of hitting our targets from lower down, and to get there quickly before he can be sure we're coming to visit and then find our range. But strangely, nobody shoots at us. It's like they're rather cruelly teasing us, or have decided that it's better for them to hide from our big bombs than try to swat us from the sky before we drop them! So I plant one of the bombs on the eastern bank, right in the middle of what I hope is the biggest concentration of hiding Huns. Gibson does likewise, hitting the bank just on the opposite side. Sanders and Wallace, not able to see much amidst the plumes of smoke and debris thrown up by our bombs, fly over a bit further and drop their eggs on some Huns in an abandoned village, whom I found out latter had been firing at us, though I saw nothing of that, so concentrated I must have been on my own little bit of the war just then. On the way back out, I drop my other egg on the bridge itself, although from the plume of water I can see it is a near miss, in the river just beside the bridge. By this time I am so low that a Hun with a pistol could probably pop me off so rather than wait around for one to raise his head from the confusion we have sown beneath, I point my machine's nose west, and pull her up, at the same time looking around and signalling for my flight-mates to rejoin me for our dash back to safety. This has all gone so well, I am suddenly anxious it will all go wrong at the last moment. My anxiety multiplies as I take in my surroundings. A second ago, the skies seemed clear; the ground too, apart from the little pockets of mayhem we have sown, marked by dispersing clouds of brown smoke. Now the world all around me has come to life, it seems. But of my former companions, there is nothing to be seen. Where have they gone? Have I lost the rest of my flight, on my first trip? What will I tell the Major? Behind me over Hunland, a couple of planes are wheeling. Could it be my people? There is no Archie near them, so more likely they are Huns, whose acquaintance at that point I have no particular desire to make, discourteous though they may think me to be. To my right, over the Lines and just into the enemy side, plumes of smoke rise from the ground - barrages, or bombing raids, I cannot tell, but I can see in the sky the little puffs of Archie, both our side's grey ones and the Hun's sinister black. Looking closely, I can see several little specks wheeling and dancing around each other, amidst the Archie - an air fight is in progress! It can't be my boys, I decide, too far north...but the uncertainty is gnawing at me. Where are they? They can't all have Gone West - not all on the one show! I repeat the signal to form up and circle in mounting despair, just over our reserve trenches. As I do so, a speck appears from Hunland, from whence I came, and drifts in my direction. A Hun coming over to knock down the last of the accursed Englishmen who have interupted his comrades' breakfast? If it is, I decide I will sell my life dearly, although glancing behind at my sergeant observer crouched over his Lewis Gun, I can sense he is slightly less keen at this prospect. I cannot really blame him for that. As the speck comes closer, it slides slightly to one side and - what relief! - I can see that it is a machine exactly like mine. A short time later, Gibson, for it is he, is back behind my left wing, and then Wallace too comes sliding in from above and behind. After a few more anxious minutes, my joy is complete as Sanders, too, appears in the distance and closes up slowly, flying a bit right wing down for a while, before recovering and straightening up. As they broke away to land on our arrival back at the 'drome, I could see they had escaped without a scratch - just as I had! Funny business, this war; I was sure I was facing a sad and lonely return with my tail well between my legs to face the Major's wrath with just my observer for company, out of the eight of us who had set out in such fine spirits a short time before; but instead, we were able to regale the ground crews and the chaps in the mess with our tales of how we had tweaked the Kaiser's moustache with impunity, Red Baron or no Red Baron! Well, there you have it - we all got back. And as I found out, Wallace and Sanders had actually fanned down some Huns, who had actually been shooting at us with machine guns, even though I never saw a thing! Must dash - there's a tender waiting to take us into town for some rather safer amusements, but I promise I'll write again soon! Give all my best to mater if you see her this weekend! Yours ever Richard

Thanks for the kind comments guys; just trying to convey how well a typical First Eagles campaign mission can bring to life for the player the sort of WW1 air war stories we've mostly all read, whether fact or fictional.

I believe this plane has a Flight model by Peter01. IIRC his FMs (I use his package which covers many planes) are designed to be flown with the gameplay difficulty setting for Flight Models at 'Hard', not 'Normal'. Check you are not using 'Normal' FM setting. Peter01's FM package is a must-have as some planes have FMs optimised for the Normal setting and don't fly right if the FM gameplay option is set to 'Hard' (which is realistic but not unrealistically difficult; if you look at the FE manual, 'Normal' is actually a 'relaxed' FM, not the most realistic one, so the 'Normal' label is a bit of a misnomer IMHO). On a wider note, I'd recommend using 'Hard' for all settings; it's much more realistic but not much more difficult and it turns off many of the 'gamey' features. It is perfectly feasible and IMHO more fun, to fly FE without these features. In fact I've hand-edited out some 'gameplay aids' which the 'Hard' settings leave behind. I have no target designator box, no enemy (red) data readout, no enemy or friendly plane icons on the map, no waypoint or target cones in the 3d display, and it's still entirely possible to find your way about and fight effectively (the very effective padlock system helps a lot).

LOL! Anyway my pleasure! Just before flying the above mission (with 10 Squadron, in Ojcar's 1917 Armchair Aces) I'd flown one in a 59 Squadron RE8 'career' which I had on the go in RoF (I drew a bombing mission there too, but my leader got shot down by V-strutters and captured and I had to ditch my eggs and force-land just on my side of the lines with most of my upper right main-plane shot away). Have to say that good tho RoF can be in many respects, and exciting tho that mission was, somehow, having then flown an RE8 campaign mission in FE2, I find the latter is still the best Single Player recreation of the WW1 air war I've read about in all those books. So I thought I'd record here - again! - the sense of reliving those experiences, that FE2 gives me best of all. Cheers Ivor