gavagai

I can check off a list of things that should make our flight more willing to flight: Elite squadron? Check. Altitude advantage? Check. Numerical advantage? Check. Over friendly territory? Check. Yet, again and again, Jasta 2 bugs out the moment an enemy aircraft appears. It seems to happen almost 50% of the time. Most recently there was a single Spad 7 at a lower altitude, and that caused all eight Jasta 2 scouts to bug out for home. Why?

I'm not the flight leader. I haven't patched up to 1.21. I'll see if that helps. Thanks for the suggestions.

Yeah, I was hoping not to do that. When the WOFF AI works, it works very well. I really like that the AI tries to save its skin by running away. Something seems amiss with how it evaluates the tactical situation.

Bucksnort, not sure if you saw this yet from chill31: That's the only level airspeed gps data we're going to get from a contemporary (replica) Dr.I pilot. We'll never know the real airspeed of the WW1 Dr.I, but his measurement lines up well with our old hypothesis that it was not as fast as the ~115mph figures that can be found.

I don't claim they had French-made Clerget engines. Some of the license built engines were OK, many of them were not. For airspeed, I would go with what Rise of Flight has. When they have the time of year for test data, they will adjust performance to match 15 degrees C and 767mm Hg. They did that for the D.VII and I am confident they did that for the Triplane. Otherwise it would fly 120+ mph.

The 130hp Clerget was license built in the UK. It was the license that made them expensive. The license built engines were notorious by the Fall of 1917 in Camel squadrons. French made Clergets were much better. Notice that one of the brand new license-built engines was worse than a French engine with 64 hours of wear.

Keep in mind that the Sopwith Triplane test data is from December 1916. The dense winter air will make the same scout look much more attractive compared to its performance in the summer. The ceiling alone can vary by 2000ft, and the airspeed by 5-10% depending on the altitude. But I agree that it was faster than the Camel. I've never heard of Triplanes having the disappointing engine performance that the Camel had. Trenchard was so mad he wanted to replace all of the Clerget engines on the Camel with 110hp Le Rhones.

121.5 mph is over the top, but what's the reason for why the Triplane should be slower than the Camel at sea level? Frontal cross-section area?

I think I figured out what's happening. You added right rudder, and not left rudder. The default xfm file has a line for gyroscopic moment in response to yaw. By default pitch is highly dampened. Removing the pitch dampening allows the gyroscopic moment to be felt, so when you rudder right you're pitching forward, which increases speed. Rudder left and you slow down more because you pitch up. What I can do is to also reduce the gyroscopic moment, and maybe give a little more freedom in the yaw axis. Then there should be more consistent airspeed loss due to yaw.

Tested and working well. Use at your own risk of course. http://combatace.com/files/file/14657-alb-dva-n17-fm-mod/ Unzip into c:\OBDSoftware. Then use jsgme to enable the fm modifications for the Albatros D.Va and Nieuport 17. These are two aircraft that I have spent a lot of time adjusting to something that satisfies me. Make sure to use rudder to help roll the Nieuport 17. Feedback and suggestions for improvement are welcome. Thanks!

Use the JSGME ready download, Aroth. And I have to agree with the OP. It really brings things to life. Lighting is at least as important as texture detail for the experience of being there.

No speed loss at all? Is that an exaggeration or you want to see more speed loss? I tried it out and there is definitely a loss of airspeed with full rudder. Thank you for the feedback! What I was going for is to approximate the yawing behavior you get in Rise of Flight, which is very convincing. I'll see if I can do better.

This chart is a real mish-mash of sources. Notice that none of the aircraft with a 110hp Oberursal are reaching 115mph @ sea level like the Dr1 in WOFF. ------------------ Here is one of the paradoxes of WW1 flight models: the Albatros D.II versus the Albatros D.III. Pilots describe the Albatros D.III as being better in every way, but wingloading is very much in favor of the Albatros D.II. I'm wondering how much flight sims do a bad job of incorporating interference between the wings of the stout and boxy D.II. In Rise of Flight the D.II is a slow motion UFO, and in WOFF its handling is much better than the other Albatrosses. This chart compares the lift of biplanes compared to monoplanes as a %, where biplanes lose lift because of interference between the two wings: gap:chord ratio Albatros D.II = 0.87 Albatros D.III = 1.34 The D.III's aspect ratio is also superior to the D.II. Using chill31's spreadsheet (which actually calculates munk's span factor for a very subtle estimation of biplane aspect ratio), the aspect ratios are Albatros D.II = 3.6 Albatros D.III = 5.0

File Name: Alb_DVa_N17_FM_mod File Submitter: gavagai File Submitted: 08 March 2014 File Category: Modding Tools and Add-on Software This is a jsgme package with flight model adjustments to the Nieuport 17 and Albatros D.Va for WOFF. Extract it into c:\OBDSoftware and use the jsgme switcher to enable the mods. Click here to download this file

Awesome, thanks! It was just a stupid copy and paste error in one of the FM files. The posted file in the OP is correct now.

Nevermind!

Bucksnort, Here are some examples of what I did to the Entente rotary airspeeds at sea level: Camel: 118.5mph -> 112mph Nieuport 17: 110mph -> 102.5mph Nieuport 24: 116mph -> 109.4mph That way the Albatros D.III actually has a chance to extend away with its underwhelming 114mph.

I've been working a lot this week. Give me a day to catch up and I'll see what's been posted. First, I'll mention that you can find the top speeds in the xfm files. In my testing the max airspeed at sea level is exactly what it is says in the xfm file.

Olham, The AI behavior seems OK. No crashing during takeoff or landing. I did see a collision during normal navigation, but that happened now and then with the default FMs, too (I am a terrible flight leader I guess). In dogfights the AI does fine. However, some of its defensive maneuvers are more limited because it can no longer use the rudder to yaw so wildly.

The tighter turn is from 2 things: 1. the reduced loaded weight to 914.5kg 2. A more efficient L/Dmax compared to the default. The CLmax on the default Albatros is also very low, which is what made me suspicious. The CLmax of the Goettingen 174 airfoil is publicly available data, around 1.41. The CLmax of the WOFF Albatros D.Va is only 1.14. I don't know if that was a typo or not, but it is similar for all of the Albatros scouts, so it seems not to have been a mistake. I don't think the turn is excessively good, however. Just yesterday I found it a chore to keep up with a Spad 7 in a flat turn, and then the AI Spad I was chasing entered a climbing turn that I could not follow. As always, more feedback is welcome. ----------------- When I have more time I'll post a jsgme of the FMs I have adjusted and find satisfying.

JSGME hurting your fps is a new one to me. I just move folders in and out manually for now and I don't have any trouble. Thank you for the feedback!

rjw, try a slip turn in the f3 fly-by view. Use full rudder. You should notice a tremendous difference. Otherwise the xfm file might not be in the right place.

Well, ok then! If you see a xfm file in each of those folders with the right name, then it is good to go for the campaign, too!

Hi Von Baur, No, I don't have stick time in a WW1 scout. I have time in light aircraft, though. What I mean when I say "fly like a real aircraft" is just basic flight physics that will not change drastically from one aircraft to the next. For example, the hockey-skid rudder response is present in all of the WOFF scouts, but you can reduce it with the "weathervane" parameter in the xfm files. Another flight behavior that I disagree with is that pitch response in WOFF is *extremely* dampened. Pull back on the stick, release the pressure to the neutral position, and the nose stays exactly where you left it. Admittedly, my real life stick time is in aircraft with reputations for being easy to fly, and none of them are as good natured as that. Among flight simulations with high-fidelity flight models only fly-by-wire jets are so obedient. So, yes, absolutely this is a subjective endeavor. That's why I am curious to have others try out my changes. I would be glad to hear "what you have done is awful, it stinks, and I hate it." At least then I would have some feedback. Elephant has packaged my mod so that it only affects quick combat. You would have to rename the file and put it in the appropriate folders to use it in campaigns. -------------- As for the topic of mods in general, I agree that fragmenting a community is bad. However, there is no multiplayer combat in WOFF, so I don't see a problem here. 90% of my changes only affect the handling of the Albatros D.Va, not the performance. In fact, the only real issue I have with the relative performance of scouts in WOFF is the high speed of the Nieuport 17, 23, 24, and the Sopwith Camel. Slowing them down to more plausible airspeeds so that the Albatros fits between the SE5a and Entente rotaries makes everything perfect. ------------ rjw, the mod elephant posted (my mod) does nothing to the Albatros D.V. Make sure you see his updated post where he corrected the mistake. S!