CastelEtzwane

OK, thanks for the informative reply. I've got the MultiMod but have neglected the wind settings, so will now take a look. Also took the liberty of downloading your FM models pack while I was at it - FMtweaksBHAH2ver1.0_VonS. And the Franken mod to improve FPS. Cheers

Hello all - From reading WWI aviator memoirs I know that wind direction was regarded by British aviators as a major part of the flying environment. Account after account notes that the wind blew in favor of the Germans, since it blew from west to east, and thus British aircraft were put at a disadvantage when they attempted to fly homeward (towards the west). And of course when Richthofen shot down Hawker it is noted that during that lengthy engagement the two combatants were blown further and further into German territory, to Hawkers disadvantage. So is this effect modelled in WOFF ? Note: I have 'Wind' and 'Wind Effects' turned on in my WOFF setup but only notice wind effects - that is, my pilot's aircraft gets thrown about more on days when the wind blows strongly, especially at higher altitudes. But what effect should I be noticing from the 'Wind' attribute ?

My experience is that my pilot can usually spot an enemy formation (i.e., some dots) flying very high (sometimes almost overhead) as my AI flight leader putters about. This enemy formation will disappear after about 10 seconds if you don't leave the formation and climb after them. And sometimes the AI flight leader spots them after awhile and follows my pilot. And once in awhile the AI flight leader is on the ball and spots the enemy right away and then leads the interception. Sometimes my pilot never spots anything. Seems like a lot of times the enemy's target is your home aerodrome so be careful when landing !

Never mind, turns out that last night my Esc 15 Nieuport 17 pilot probably encountered Richtofen one on one. The Baron is a, umm how shall I put it, a quick worker . . .

Great pics !! Which reminds me that in all my years of playing WOFF campaigns, I've never come across Manfred von Richtofen, Udet, or Mannock while flying as an adversary. Latched onto Fonck's tail once but he disappeared under a wing.

-I wondered about this too but it turns out that the default skin for Esc 65 has the tricolor chevrons. Also, after the forced landing and the engine quits, it was nice to be reminded what a great a job WOFF does recreating the sounds of war while viewing that nice airshow.

I suggest performing the same experiment again, only this time with 'Forced Encounters' set to 'OFF'. As I understand it, 'Forced Encounters' skews the probability of air-to-air encounters.

Success !!

Think that there should be some sort of accompanying sound + jostling of aircraft when the player gets hit by Archie.

Is there an easy solution for this ? I believe that my WOFF BHH installation now has this problem as well. As far as I can tell, whenever my pilot (or the AI in my pilot's flight for that matter) fires at a balloon, the mission crashes and an error message is generated (see image). However, the WOFF game itself then continues to the debriefing screen. It is possible to fly more missions afterwards but that particular pilot seems to be 'marked for death'. That is, in subsequent missions he invariably gets rammed or happens to be dealt a critical wound such that he dies. (I take backups of the pilot files because I don't accept death by collision as a valid way to die, so in the event of a collision the pilot files get replaced and then I fly another mission. Which then results in another collision or a critical wound.) On the other hand, if I continue to play WOFF with a new pilot, all goes well. Until he gets assigned a balloon-busting mission . . .

IIRC, When I played hundreds (300+?) of missions with the UE edition of WOFF, my pilots were hit by Archie (anti-aircraft) a grand total of one time. With the BHOH edition, my pilots have now probably flown more than a hundred missions by now. My current pilot, a Frenchman starting in the Flanders region during winter 1917, has flown 30+ missions. What is remarkable is that he has now been hit by archie 3 times, resulting in 2 woundings and 2 forced landings. I have flown several careers with British and German pilots using BHOH but none of them experienced damage from anti-aircraft that I know of. (Sorry, didn't start regularly reading 'Mission Review' to verify Archie damage until recent weeks) Does anyone know if this is just the luck of the draw or is BHOH archie really more dangerous than UE archie ? Furthermore, are some AA batteries more formidable than other Archie units ? And lastly, will comment that I do not recall hearing any sound on any of the occasions when my French pilot's aircraft was struck by anti-aircraft. Neither was his aircraft's motion disturbed. However, injury and damage penalties were immediately applied and corresponding messages were displayed. Shouldn't there be a loud sound, accompanied by the aircraft being tossed about, when a plane is severely damaged by Archie? Some kind of effect would seem to be in order.

I think it's about 16:20 o'clock in the image file of a recent French-German furball.

I have noticed that during the winter (nov-dec) that fighter squadrons, especially the French, will schedule afternoon patrols for 15:45 o'clock. Well, after about 30 minutes the sun begins setting so the return to base is in the dark. And a good portion of combats occur in failing light. The French are also the most enthusiastic about pre-dawn patrols. (in the spring iirc). With the combination of the darkness and the SPAD's unfortunate view from the cockpit, my French pilots lose sight of the enemy much more often than when flying as German or British.

I grew up a military brat so we had access to the Avalon Hill and SPI games, but TSR was strictly about Dungeon & Dragons stuff. Or so I thought.

The Mission Review is a really useful feature. I get a kick out of writing a combat report from memory thru the 'Claims' menu and then going back the Mission Review to try to find out what really happened. So it would be nice if we had the option to save every Mission Review to a text file for later viewing in case we just don't have the time or forget to look at the Mission Review. There have been plenty of times that I have flown multiple missions in a row, intending to go back and look at the Mission Review with regards to one of those missions, only to discover that only the last mission flown is available for 'Mission Review'. P.S. - confirmed now via Mission Review that my pilot has indeed collided with those lamp/fire drums sitting along the edge of airfields. Btw does anyone know it the Mission Review is a 100% translation of the mission.log file ? Then it is possible to write a script to save it.

I couldn't help thinking first and foremost about Rockitt's ground crew reaction to him wrecking their SPAD only a week after they spent all those extra hours painting it blue for him . . .

Hehe - what part of that N28 didn't get shot up ? Even the landing gear are gone !! And I don't believe I've ever seen a propeller chewed off at the tips in WOFF. Synchronization gear quit working ? Or did the N28 bounce up after smacking the ground ?

I recall one of my German pilots (late 1917 or early 1918 ?) getting into a similar situation where the squadron became decimated and he was the only active pilot left. This was the result of his jasta's flights regularly encountering larger enemy formations. IIRC I decided he would skip a week or two until the jasta was once more up to strength. I didn't pay attention to what status the jasta was in so lack data there. But I think it's possible to skip time no matter what state the squadron is in. But what happened was that as soon as new aircraft and pilots arrived, the jasta began operations with both A and B flights again instead of consolidating, with the result that once again small German formations ran into larger enemy formations and were again decimated. A vicious circle, you see. So skipping time didn't help much in this case. I think things would have turned out OK if the jasta had only operated one flight for awhile.

An old film clip, but here is one of the strangest things I have ever seen during a WOFF (UE) mission: note: I have not edited the film clip. Has anyone else experienced this as well ? note: no sound

An old film clip, but here is one of the strangest things I have ever seen during a WOFF (UE) mission: note: I have not edited the film clip. Has anyone else experienced this as well ?

Artillery spotting missions - just want to point out that artillery spotting missions flown by the AI can probably be implemented right now without much problem. As I understand it, artillery spotting had much in common with recon missions (in regard to waypoint planning) except at they are flown at 5000 ft and over the front lines instead of 15-20 000 ft and behind the lines. Arthur Gould Lee wrote constantly of sighting artillery spotting aircraft flying at 5000 ft. Billy Bishop wrote in 'Winged Warfare' about his time as an observer flying arty-spotting missions. So it must have been a pretty common occurence during the Great War. And it seems that, like aircraft flying recon missions, upon detecting an enemy, these aircraft would dive back towards their side of the lines. They would then return afterwards after the danger had passed. And naturally these arty aircraft often had a friendly fighter formation in the vicinity ready to support them in case of attack. Hopefully, this sounds like something doable for the WOFF AI.

Looky what I accidentally recorded. I was trying to get a picture of my Camel in the foreground after landing, with another Camel landing in the background. The first A.I. Camel has landed and rolled to the end of the field. My Camel pilot landed next and swung off to the right instead of rolling to the end of the field. Then I start taking screenshots:

OK, thanks for the reply. Well, I'm a bit fuzzy as to how things went when it came to landing aircraft during WWI but I don't recall any cases of aircraft bursting into flames as a result of a bad landing. Right now I'm reading Gould's 'No Parachute' and his No.46 squadron has transitioned from Pups to Camels. He comments about how tricky the Camel is to fly, and that the new pilots had a tendency to 'break' Camels while practicing landing, leading to much extra repair work by the squadron mechanics. But no one was seriously injured during the switch, so I don't think that flameouts were a thing that happened as a result of bad landings. Let us not forget the case of Ira 'Taffy' Jones, SE5a pilot with 37 victories , who was bad at landing and is reputed to have crashed 28 times. (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-43569955) Also, it seems as if the animations which depict bad landings are not in agreement with what actually happens. To my way of thinking, the foward momentum of a landing aircraft should not suddenly stop unless that aircraft collided with an inanimate object like a wall. So far what I have seen are animations of aircraft suddenly halting for no apparent reason and taking damage. If my pilot runs into a bomb crater while landing, shouldn't the aircraft slew around or continue forward in some manner even if it means flipping over ? Could be that this happens but I haven't seen it yet. note: I need to remember to run the 'Mission Review' next time this happens in order to see what exactly it is that the pilot has run into.