VonS

Hi VonOben, Gunner accuracy settings are also located in the data inis of relevant guns in the "Guns" folder....usually set to something like 10 which is quite low. I've been revising about 15 commonly used guns for rate of fire, reliability, also in the case of gunners for accuracy I have increased the value from 10 to 40. I am currently linking up the data inis for the western theatre with these modifications and will try to post the big 8.0 update in about a week - the new gun tweaks should help with rear gunner accuracy which I think is too low in FE2, even when a modified aircraftaidata file is not used. I have also been experimenting further with the aircraftaidata and currently have two versions - one gives tough dogfights and incorporates the dogfight skill set info. from the Nieuport 16 data ini file (which I find to be a challenging plane in FE2). I have also further modified the aidata file that I have currently, and have expanded the gun fire angles for the different skill levels, now pilots shoot more but accuracy is better in the alternative aidata file - I will test the basic one with slightly different (lower) gun fire angles and will upload both versions with the 8.0 update. Happy flying, Von S

Edit: disregard the "Thumbs.db" file located in the pic of my main Pilots folder, that's a thumbnails database file generated automatically in folders on OS X. Von S

Hi Geezer, yes I've tested it now and the nested folder works for the Euro Pilot too - and it's the 1930s one with the oxygen mask as you indicated - how that ended up in my FE2 folder I have no idea, but I've removed it now since it doesn't fit with WWI. Here's a brief tutorial below for anyone struggling with invisible pilots in FE2, and my data inis. Been tweaking some more and nested folders work well for many of the pilots. A nicely organized Pilots folder should look something like this: The top four folders correspond with the German blue scarf pilot, British summer pilot, British winter pilot, and desert pilot. The next four are Stephen's cork helmet and/or scarf pilots (the order of the folders is not important, I'm simply referring to what's on my pic). The files that are missing inis and outs, such as WWIpilot01, should not be placed in nested folders but left as indicated in the main Pilots folder, otherwise they can't be called up by the data ini files for the planes. Illustrated below is the inside of the British summer pilot folder, now renamed to wwiPilotNew5 Don't forget to edit the corresponding, top LOD entry inside the ini file of the relevant folder, so that the correct LOD file is called, as indicated below (leave the LOD002 stuff alone since any changes to that disable the nested folder from being called up by the plane's data ini file): Relevant toggles in the data inis then become: PilotModelName=WWIpilot (this is the old blocky-head pilot) PilotModelName=wwiPilotNew1 (standard new pilot) PilotModelName=wwiPilotNew2 (German blue scarf pilot) PilotModelName=wwiPilotNew3 (standard new pilot, different colored coat) PilotModelName=wwiPilotNew4 (standard new pilot, different coat color) PilotModelName=wwiPilotNew5 (British summer pilot) PilotModelName=wwiPilotNew6 (British winter pilot) PilotModelName=wwiPilotNew7 (desert pilot) PilotModelName=WW1pilot01 (Ansaldo pilot, fits into other planes but looks like he's 6 foot 8 inches when installed in something like a DH.2) PilotModelName=CaudronPilot (nice generic looking pilot and fits well in other bombers and some planes, not only the Caudrons) PilotModelName=narrowplt (this one is probably best to use in the H-Brandenburg D.I, will require some repositioning of coordinates for other planes) Von S

Thank you for the constructive comments. Have now experimented further and success! Nested folders do work within the Pilots folder, providing there are no spaces in the names of the folder and that the names correspond with the ini, out, and lod names of the files located inside...pic below demonstrates what I've now done with the Desert Pilot skin, also changed was the first lod number called up through the ini file, to correspond with the no. 7 now assigned to the lod file, as follows: [LOD001] Filename=wwiPilotNew7.lod Distance= MinObjectDistance=0.1 MaxObjectDistance=300.0 [LOD002] Filename=wwiPilotNew_LOD2.lod Distance=500 (The LOD002 stuff should be left as is since changing ruins the nested folder procedure.) This process also works with the British Summer and Winter Pilots, now renamed and repackaged in folders wwiPilotNew5 and wwiPilotNew6, same thing for the German Winter Pilot - his files and bmps can be thrown into a folder named wwiPilotNew2. The solution is now quite tidy since I can call up folder names from within the pilot toggle entry of the data inis and everything is nice and packaged... Will see if this also works with Italian Euro Pilot and also the Caudron pilot stuff that's missing an out and ini file. Happy flying, Von S

Thank you for posting your Pilots folder pic Geezer, I will compare with mine and see what I can do to call up the pilot heads that I can't get visible in game. It's possible that Stephen has made some workaround for the cork helmet pilots since I can call those folders up directly within the Pilots folder, but the ones with spaces in names I can't call up...very interesting. I will try to bring all of the files directly into the main Pilots folder as you've done and will see if this makes any changes. Happy flying, Von S

Hi vonOben, I've tested the deselect_target settings further and it makes no difference unfortunately. The only way to deselect is to select another target it seems. I've set up the Default.ini file so that one key selects enemy planes and my "g" key cycles through ground targets and observation balloons. This is the best compromise I've been able to attain but at least it functions well. There should be a pilot in all of the plane cockpits. Some have custom pilots that come with the airplane pack. I think the Ansaldo has a custom Italian pilot that should be installed into the "Pilots" folder, there is also a custom pilot contained in the Hansa-Brandenburg D.I aircraft file available here on the site. I've reset many of the pilots to the newer ones that Stephen1918 made available several months ago for FE2. Those pilot skins are available at: http://combatace.com/files/file/15832-pilots-with-helmets-for-first-eagles/ Simply download, open the file, install into your "Pilots" folder, and the pilots should then show up (the Fokk E.Ia pilot should have a black helmet in my current tweak for the data ini...the E.IIa pilot should have a standard leather helmet, not the thicker one of the Fokk E.Ia pilot....). Pilots can be toggled using the PilotModelName entry in the data ini files. The standard ones that correspond to the pilots pack by Stephen1918 are: PilotModelName=wwiPilotNew1 PilotModelName=wwiPilotNew2 PilotModelName=wwiPilotNew3 PilotModelName=wwiPilotNew4 PilotModelName=FrHelmetPilot PilotModelName=FrScarfPilot PilotModelName=GerHelmetPilot PilotModelName=GerScarfPilot The folders that have spaces in their names such as "British Summer Pilot" are not completed yet from what I've been able to see, and can't be called up using the PilotModelName entry, only the ones I've listed above. For the Brandenburg D.I, the entry should read as: PilotModelName=narrowplt For the Ansaldo, use: PilotModelName=WW1pilot01 For the Caudrons and some other special planes like the Caproni bomber, the old pilots can be changed to: PilotModelName=CaudronPilot This looks much better than the old entries that are by default: PilotModelName=WWIpilot The old entry gives a rougher looking head, I've left it in place in a few of the models for variety, but it can easily be replaced with the newer skins. Here's a pic below of what files should be in your Pilots folder, so that the correct pilot heads install with my data inis. Happy flying, Von S

Hi VonOben, hopefully someone will notice your questions who has more experience with that side of FE2, but I want to thank you for posting over on the old INI Tweaks and Changes thread earlier today. For some reason I missed that series of posts but it came in very handy, so handy that I will post a more elegant hud view that I'm now tweaking, with my 8.0 FM updates, for the "Flight" folder. Thank you! (For "deselect target," open the Default.ini file in the "Controls" folder manually and then assign a key to the DESELECT_TARGET entry, I went in there now and noticed that nothing is assigned there by default.) Happy flying, Von S

A quick update: flamers seem to be happening more frequently now that I've tweaked the post-damage engine settings in the data inis, as indicated in one of my earlier posts here. Had a very good flamer erupt in a one-on-one with a Nieu 16 and Halb D.5 in the Palestinian theatre while testing my other tweaks today. The Lewis Mk2 is now more potent at 750 rounds/min. A couple of pics of the excellent flamer below... Also had a good flamer going with a Fokk. E.IIa as well, in a battle with a Morane N - I've pushed the engine exhaust (and fire) position forward on the E.IIa since previously it was too far behind the pilot and wings - now it's closer to the engine and small fuel tank behind the engine (there was a bigger tank behind the pilot on later Eindeckers, I think the E.III, but the fire far back on the fuselage just looked strange to me). Some pics of that tweak too...will upload with the version 8.0 FM update... Happy flying, Von S

Can now confirm that the corrections work in FE2. I've now incorporated the node name changes into the Halb. D.5 data ini and will upload with the next FM update. Don't forget to change the name of the "fuse_HOLES" and "wings_HOLES" files in your Halb. D.5 aircraft folder to "Halb D5 Fuselage_HOLES" and "Halb DV Wings_HOLES" for this to work properly (note the DV in the Wings tga, not D5 as in the Fuselage tga...that one confused me until I found out the minor difference...now the wings show damage too). Pic follows... Happy flying, Von S

Excellent, thank you for the quick corrections Stephen. I will incorporate the model node name changes into the Halb D.5 data ini and will upload with a version 8.0 FM update. Happy flying, Von S Yes, the Halb. is a great ride in the Palestinian theatre, especially good against the RFC Nieuport 16. Von S

I was able to get the holes visible on the fuselage using the advice in this thread, but nothing for the wings. I'm assuming that some skin files or lod files are missing for the Halb D.5 that would make this damage modelling possible - I doubt that the improvements can be implemented directly from within the data ini file. I look forward to new discoveries regarding this. Happy flying, Von S

Hi VonOben, Thank you for the feedback - it's good to know that the hit rate is still terrible , this means that my general aircraftaidata file is not too bad. I have also noticed in more testing that the default FE2 settings make the planes fire more than my file does, but accuracy is horrible either way. I have now incorporated the Nieu 16 dogfight settings into the file, have reduced gunner fire accuracy (to have them shoot more freely), and have increased the gunner fire time, for longer bursts - and will post results should any big changes become noticeable. Happy flying, Von S

Hi VonOben, That is correct that I also test and fly all of my FMs on "hard" settings - the only thing I leave at normal is the AI setting. Yes, please test the combat behavior of the planes without that generalaidata file so we can compare what is happening. I have in the meantime expanded the cannon range and angles of fire in that file and have retested in one of my custom one-on-two missions. Without that file, when I let FE2 control the AI for the early Fokk. Eindeckers, they both follow closely behind me and take shots consistently (I was in a DH.2, fighting two Eindeckers). We proceeded to fight in tight circles until we got down close to ground level. One of the Eindeckers managed to get five or six shots into me, the other did not. I eventually shot down both but it was a tight fight. I then tested with my now modified generalaidata ini file, with cannon ranges of up to 1km, and with angles of fire ranging as high as 360 degrees, and I noticed that shooting was now more conservative from the Eindeckers - the more aggressive one followed me and got one or two shots into me, but the circles were wider in which we fought than when FE2 controlled the AI - the other Eindecker was flying above us by about 100 meters, while the other was on my tail in a wide circle. When I would shake him off eventually, then the other Eindecker would swoop down onto my tail, while the other proceeded to make a wide turn and to get slightly above us. Such flying seemed more realistic/historical to me for the period than to have both of the Eindeckers follow me in close proximity to one another and to shoot aggressively, wasting most of their ammo., although when FE2 controls the AI, a few more shots from the Eindeckers managed to hit me. The fight was still a difficult one with my modified file - it took about 5 mins. to shoot one of the Eindeckers down. The more aggressive one gave me a fight that lasted another 10 mins. or so - even with the wider turns it was difficult to get him off of my tail, but I managed to do so once he got too low to ground level. I will test the file further using some of the dogfight settings in the "Nieuport 16" data ini file, pasted into the general aircraftaidata file - since the Nieu. 16 can be quite aggressive in the game, and I will perhaps post a newer version with the 8.0 FM update. Happy flying, Von S

Hi VonOben, These are very interesting results you're getting with that generic aircraftaidata file. I do all of my testing in single mission mode, and sometimes in custom missions that I load up and that I've made myself, where I have one on one, one on two, sometimes one on three or four dogfights. The campaign mode I've tried a few times but it's a bit unstable in my current version of WineSkin - I will probably have to "re-wrap" the FE2 program in a newer version of Wine at some point down the road - to see if it improves campaign mode playability. It's entirely possible that AI is more aggressive in custom-mission mode and in single mission mode than in campaign mode - although I always set the AI to "normal" since this gives the best balance of skills, and variety between you and opponents in flight. Try flying some of the campaigns with the general "aircraftaidata" file removed from your "Objects" folder - merely place it somewhere on the desktop while you test further - without that file, FE2 will use its hard-coded settings for AI behavior for aircraft data ini files where no dogfight skill info. has been plugged in. In other words, FE2 will then directly control the AI for early monoplane types, instead of my modified file. That will be a good way of comparing results. In the meantime I will test the aircraftaidata file further. I'm going to increase the cannonburstlength across pilot skill levels, also maxcannonrange, and cannonfireangle will be greatly increased - if I am happy with the results I'll post that version with the 8.0 FM updates but will include a note somewhere in the ReadMe that the aircraftaidata file works well in single mission and custom mission mode, but has not been tested in campaigns. I hope to have my major overhaul of the individual data inis done within about 10 days and will post the 8.0 version update - now rates of fire are historical, so are ammo. loads, and gun sounds have been improved too - will write up the changes in a detailed ReadMe. Technically, 8.0 will not be an FM update but a general "historical realism" update. Happy flying, Von S

Great stuff, this is a beautiful looking, single-seater, "hybrid" dogfighter. Adjusting the FM for bomb weight should be easy enough in FE2 as I discovered with Geezer's Martinsydes that also had a dual-role (although those are not very effective as dogfighters). The trick is to test the aircraft first in something like "offensive" mode that doesn't give it bombs, tweak the FM to correct stats., and then to plug it into bombing mode or army coop - the top speed automatically goes down because of the addition of bombs. I look forward to tinkering with the FM once the project is released. Happy flying, Von S

These are excellent ideas 'gents. I've been contemplating the idea of a "single mission linker"-type application for FE2 for several weeks but this would probably require some fancy coding...will look further into this, to see if it is feasible. The idea is that you would start in a single mission in a theatre of your choice (let's say Palestine, Sept. 1915, flying as a Fokker. E.IIa pilot for the Ottomans - and then you would automatically after completing the mission be "randomly" thrown into another, perhaps a month or two later, either of the same type, for example, offensive, or randomly, another type doing a balloon busting mission or army coop....this would require of course code to "randomize" things...also to switch between "light" and "heavy" air activity depending on the theatre and period of war). The Palestinian theatre would have only light and moderate air activity, something like the Western front would shift to heave air activity by early 1918...other variations would be implemented for the Eastern and Italian theatres. This would then allow a kind of "linear" approximation of the campaign modes, but flying in "interlinked" single mission mode. Lots of ideas to think about. Happy flying, Von S

Hi VonOben, Most of the individual data inis for the planes contain dogfight skill level info. But for the early monoplane types that are often missing such sections, the general "aircraftaidata" ini file, that goes into the "Objects" folder of the user folder for FE2 - then takes over and influences some of the AI behavior. It's possible that the gun angles are too limited in that version of the aircraftaidata ini file, and therefore the monoplanes are not shooting at one another as frequently as desired. I've uploaded ver 5.0 of the aircraftaidata file below (that increases cannon fire angles as per Nick Bell's suggestions) - perhaps this one will help with more aggressive dogfights (edit: tried to upload the file here but can't find an attachment option now, so I will PM you the file instead). It is odd however that when ordered to attack, your monoplanes rarely engage. Mine tend to engage right away but shooting frequency did leave something to be desired in the ver. 4.0 update of the general aircraftaidata file. I fly the missions on "normal" mode since this gives the best balance for the AI on your side and the opponents. I look forward to more feedback so that the general aidata file can be improved further (it's really a "plug" to help with the early monoplanes only in the game but it doesn't hurt to have the file - and it's more efficient than tweaking dogfight settings individually per early plane type). Happy flying, Von S

Thank you for the kind words. The .dll files are easy enough to extract from the game on the OS X side, in WineSkin...I think the magic one is the FlightEngine.dll...but it's useless to me since I'm not a coder and don't understand what to do with the file. Opening it in a simple text program gives me confusing machine code that would have to be translated over into something readable using another program of some kind...the only thing I've been able to learn is that FE2 is probably written in C++ computer language. Perhaps FE2 flyers who are also software developers or code experts and are running the game in WineSkin will extract the FlightEngine.dll file for themselves and have a look at what's inside...I'm sure that the code for engine controls is somewhere in there - but that is way beyond my tweaking abilities. Another problem would be how to re-integrate a modded FlightEngine.dll back into the core FE2 game itself on the Windows side...in WineSkin it's easy enough since from the UNIX/OS X side of things I can just dump in the new dll and replace the old one - and then fly in FE2. I have no idea how this kind of re-integration would work in Windows. Happy flying, Von S

Hello Crawford, results are very good in several areas (increased realism in FE2 with historical ammo. loads, gun jams, also improved gun sounds) - I have had some success with engine tweaking but this only affects them once they're damaged - still no way to get arbitrary engine failure going without damage. My full post on latest developments can be found here.... http://combatace.com/topic/88786-fe2-observations-and-musings/page-2?do=findComment&comment=719218 Happy flying, Von S

Tinkering further with the max. firing angles, I'm pleased that now the novices and "green" pilots are sometimes taking shots at me from 90 degree angles, peppering my fuselage in the process. The moves are reminiscent of the famous Verner Voss fight with perpendicular hits being taken and whatnot. I will incorporate the extended firing angles into a ver. 8.0 update of the general aircraftaidata ini file. Further testing has revealed that it is not possible (for now) to generate arbitrary engine failure in the game. I was rummaging through the data ini for the P-47 Thunderbolt to see if any WEP settings could be manipulated into the WWI data inis, to over-rev engines in dives for example, but from what I've seen there is no magic ingredient in the SF2 data inis that can be "retrofitted" into the FE2 data inis for arbitrary engine damage. However, post-hit engine damage seems to work well, with variety, by tweaking the settings for DamageTempDelta and OverheatDamageRate. The other entries mentioned in my previous posts for temp. rate change are best left untouched, also the overheating point of 100 degrees. The OverheatDamageRate, from further testing, seems to go from 0.0 to 1.0, whereas the DamageTempDelta is a percentage value. A good variation that works... Two-row Rotaries DamageTempDelta=20 OverheatDamageRate=0.3 Single-row Rotaries and also Radials DamageTempDelta=30 OverheatDamageRate=0.4 Early Inlines DamageTempDelta=60 OverheatDamageRate=0.7 Later Inlines DamageTempDelta=50 OverheatDamageRate=0.5 The logic is that rotaries, like radials in WW2, are a bit tougher to damage than inlines where things can get hosed quickly. I am slowly applying these changes and will upload in an 8.0 release. It seems to have improved chances for engine fires after damage, as far as I've been able to test. Some pics below...an engagement between German-flown Nieu17bis types and RAF Camels in the Mesopotamian front. Also being applied slowly are historical gun-belt lengths (number of rounds) per plane per theatre, more realistic unjamming times (more waiting), and ejection of bullets in all cases except for observers (with cartridge bags) and on some pusher types like the DH.2 that also carry bags (danger of cartridges hitting the prop in the back). Reading some of the big names on TheAerodrome, I've learned that empty cartridges were ejected through chutes even on the Nieuports, the empty gun-belts would be rewound and reused, but cartridges were always ejected on those types supposedly. Also revised were rates of fire for several of the guns, and new gun folders have been installed - this wil take a while now to "link up" the data inis with the changes. Revised now are the following types and rates of fire: Hotchkiss - 450 rounds (these were usually detuned to such values in the field, from the theoretical max. of about 750) Lewis - 750 rounds Vickers1 - 400 rounds Vickers2 - 600 rounds Vickers2muzzleboost - 850 rounds Parabellum - 550 rounds synchronized / 900 unsynchronized Spandau early - 350 rounds Spandau mid - 450 rounds Spandau late - 550 rounds Schwarzlose early - 350 rounds Schwarzlose late - 500 rounds Also tweaked was gun reliability and accuracy where necessary Also included are new sounds for the Lewis, Hotchkiss, Vickers types, and Spandau types - tempo was changed on the original files to slow or speed up the sound of the rate of fire. Two late Spandaus on the Alby. types sure can make quick lunch of the flimsy Nieuports now, as tested with Alb. D.3 and Nieu. 16 types in the Mesopotamian theatre. Also tested was a left muzzle-boosted Vickers Mk.2 and right Mk.2 (as was typical) on the Camels. The faster rofs are now deadlier, also noticeable is that you - and the AI - run out of ammo much more quickly now - which is a good improvement towards realism. I quickly became a pepper-pot for these new guns on the Camels while testing the Nieu17bis against them, although I could have climbed away and escaped - but it was too much fun. Pics below... Will upload the revisions as one big update (8.0) once it's all done - it's a slow process - instead of uploading the fixed theatres in parts. Happy flying, Von S

Hi vonOben, The main settings I've found that help increase frame rates are ground detail, also the terrain effects and objects on the ground - those when set to "medium" have helped me with reasonable frame rates. Also, I usually keep the water detail at "medium." Haven't experimented too much with the other settings to see how much they help. Here are my graphics settings from the Options.ini file: [GraphicsOptions] DisplayDeviceID=0 DisplayWidth=1600 DisplayHeight=900 DisplayDepth=32 AspectRatio=1.777778 AntiAliasing=4 UseAdvancedShaders=0 ForceDX9=FALSE ForceVSyncOff=FALSE LensFlare=2 DetailLevel=4 ObjectDetail=1 ObjectTexture=1 CockpitTexture=1 CockpitMirrors=0 CockpitReflection=0 EffectsDetail=1 TerrainDetail=1 TerrainTexture=1 HorizonDistance=0 GroundObjectDensity=1 WaterDetail=1 CloudsDetail=2 Shadow=0 They give me good frame rates but you might have to tinker with them further for your particular graphics card (I have the HD 4000, the integrated one from Intel, in a quad-core i7 Mac Mini). Alternate in-flight maps are probably what you are thinking of (if you don't like the stock ones with text). Here are a couple of variations on in-flight maps (I haven't tried the alternate ones out so I don't know how well they work): http://combatace.com/files/file/11899-new-fe2-in-flight-map/ http://combatace.com/files/file/14555-planing-maps/ Your installation of the terrain z-buffer shader alteration is correct (it goes into the relevant terrain folder under the "terrains" folder). I would assume that 30% utilization of the second processor core is acceptable variation. It's possible that FE2 is programmed to use one core and then "some" of the other core for an extra multi-processing boost. It's way beyond my technical knowledge whether programs can be coded to take advantage of only part or a fraction of a core, rather than the whole core - I see no reason why this wouldn't be possible (to offset some tasks from the game, but not all of them, to a second core). Those with degrees in software design might want to pitch in with some of their thoughts here. Thank you for the post regarding the FM tweaks (have responded over there to those). Happy flying, Von S

Hi vonOben, and thank you for the thorough feedback. It is of great use to me and much appreciated. The DSstore files can be thrown into the trash. I tweak the settings on OS X (I fly FE2 in WineSkin) - so I am assuming that the DSstore files are generated by OS X - simply throw those away. I do find it odd that when you open the files in Notepad, some of the lines do not have clean breaks - perhaps a result of the fact that I edit the data inis in TextEdit on OS X - I will open some of the data inis in my VirtualBox install of Windows7 to see if the line breaks show up - at any rate it shouldn't hamper the behavior of the data inis. I will seriously consider uploading the data inis into relevant aircraft folders sometime in the coming months, this may help with organization of the files. The Alb. D2 data ini I use is for the late model with the radiator on the top wing, but I see no reason why it shouldn't work with the early model too - although the early model has slightly greater drag because of the "ear"-type radiators - I will get around to tweaking the early D.2 one of these days. My Fok. E.Ia and IIa are for the early Eindeckers with Parabellum machine guns - since I don't use the regular E.I or E.II - those regular ones are fitted with Spandaus. For some reason I prefer the Parabellums because of the rapid rate of fire. Thos data inis are not designed for the regular E.I and E.II. Historically, you can find E.I and E.II types sometimes with a Parabellum, sometimes with a Spandau - I think the Spandau was standardized upon by the time of the E.III. I think that I have two Nieu 27 data inis - one is for the Vickers armed one - the other, FAS, is for the one with a Vickers and Lewis. I don't have a data ini for the Nieu. 27 RFC (the RFC model was only Lewis-armed, on the top wing, but no Vickers). Only my Nieuport 10, 11, 16 have the Lewis, the 17 C.1 and later types have the Vickers, the FAS (French Air Service) one has both a Vickers and Lewis. The RFC Nieu. 24 I have for my Middle East theatre is also Vickers-only. Most of the Nieups. delivered to the RFC in Mesopotamia were still crated in the factory boxes and had the factory install of a Vickers-only. Lewis additions were usually field mods (I "pretended" that no field mods were done to the 24 in those cases). The Pfalz E.IIIo is the two-seater variant. The data ini I have, for the Pfalz E.III, is for the one-seater variant. This is similar for the Morane parasol types too (if they have an "o" in the name, they are the two-seater variant, the ones without an "o" are single-seater variants). CannonAngle, also CannonRange settings, are incorporated into the aircraftaidata file for the 7.9 updates of the FMs. I'm still tweaking those further (have now increased the canon angles as per Nick Bell's suggestions) and will improve the file more for an 8.0 update. I'm very happy to read that my E.Ia is speedier and less clumsy than in its unmodified form. Top speed for it is about 130kph below about 700 feet in altitude. There is more "torque" on it now because of the uprated total engine output. It's very good that it is now hard to keep stable when aimed at a target. The E.I and E.II types were well known for nasty yaw effects that were difficult to control. This was somewhat remedied on the E.III type, that as you will see with the tweaks is more pleasant to fly. If I had to choose between the types, I would take up the E.IIa against early opponents since it's about as fast as the E.III with a 100 HP engine, has more yaw and maneuverability, is more difficult to handle but once you practice enough with it, it becomes the deadliest of the Fokk. Eindecker variants. Spins are now rarer for those early Eindeckers but not impossible - it is still very difficult to get out of inverted spins in those types - probably impossible. Happy flying, Von S

Here's some more interesting info. on rate of fire in WWI, from what I've been able to observe in the excellent thread on the subject over at TheAerodrome. Dave Watts writes: "This would look more logical on a graph chart. The point is the rate of fire for the LMG goes up and down according to the motor rpm and not at a constant rate. You can have the full rate of fire of 440 at 220 rpm and then at 221 the rate drops to 221. Note that the gun remains constant at 440 for motor rpms of 660 to 880. You have a drop again and then the rate is pretty constant from 1100 to 1319." (Some of this correlates with my post above, that max theoretical rof would be achieved at cruising rpms of about 1000 rpm and higher.) Also, it seems that the twin Spandau setups had rate of fire set to about 400-450 on one gun, while the other was set anywhere from between 300 to 500 - this still averages to about 450 or so. The Spandaus could not be set to higher than 700/min, but usually nothing beyond about 550 was attempted. The Lewis had an average rof of between 700 and 800 - although this is largely a theoretical limit since you have to stop and change drums on it, which reduces your rof/min greatly - because of reload pauses. Vickers were initially doing about 400/min, increased to about 550/min by late '17 approximately. Also interesting is that the Constantinesco synchronization gear probably contributed to this increase in rof for the Vickers since it was coming into use by the summer of '17. Muzzle boosters were also often added to Vickers by 1918, further increasing the rof to about 800/min - the usual procedure was to have a muzzle booster on only one Vickers in a double-Vickers setup, giving one gun a rof of about 800, and the other would still be at abut 550. The theory on TheAerodrome is that, by 1918, rof on a twin-Vickers setup would then be better than with twin Spandaus on German aircraft. It's also likely that muzzle boosters were avoided on single-Vickers setups - they increased the likelihood of gun jams - leaving you with no gun effectively if you only have one Vickers and it jams. Also I noticed that the Germans were improving their synchronization gears especially by the time the twin-gunned Albatros came out - planes prior to the Albatros D.I had earlier (Fokker) interruptor gears, the D.I and D.II featured a mid-war type, the D.III featured a newer type, and there were further improvements from the D.V onwards. The transitional period for the Entente seems to have been sometime in '17, when the Alkan-Hamy gear was still prevalent (particularly on mid-war types like the Nieu. 17) - giving way to the Constantinesco particularly on British planes, by 1918. My previous estimate of rof ranging from 400 to about 800 on a good day, at cruising rpms, can then be expanded further, with this historical info, to give us a rough table of static values (since Dave Watts' comment about rof going up or down across the whole rpm arc probably can't be modelled in FE2, so I'll stick with estimates). German planes up to about mid-1916: average rof 350 to 400. German planes from late '16 to about late '17: average rof of 450. German planes from early '18 onwards: average rof of 500 to 550. Entente/Vickers planes up to about early '17: average rof of 350 to 400. Entente/Vickers from mid '17 to early '18: average rof of 550 for Spads and Se5a and Camels, around 400 for Tripes, Pups, and Nieuports type 17, 23, 24, up to about 550 again for Nieuports 27 and 28. Entente/Vickers from mid-18 onwards: average for twin-gun setup with one muzzle booster becomes about 700/min. I will do some digging into the gun data inis in the "Guns" folder for FE2 (user game folder) to see how close the rof is in those files to what I've listed here - more tweaking and testing ahead. One interesting exception is the Parabellum mounted sometimes on early Fokker Eindeckers and given to observers on German planes - its rof is high, about 800 to 1000/min. With an interruptor gear in place, it's anybody's guess what the rof would drop down too, I'm thinking something like 450 is a good estimate, still making it about 100 rounds faster/min than early Spandau setups on the Eindeckers. Von S

Yes, this would be wonderful if arbitrary engine failure could be incorporated - will test further and post results should anything successful happen. Getting the engines to over-rev and overheat would be key to having this happen, or at least some code that "cuts out" the engine when we don't expect it. Von S