Richthofen's Skies WWI Online play

www.targetware.net has a wwi simm module for download. It is currently in beta testing! It is a very realistic flight model and it is very hard to learn but alot of fun to play once you figure out how to really fly! Warning, anyone coming from the kiddie games like Red Baron etc. will have a difficult time getting into the air much less fighting. But if you keep at it, you can learn how to really fly and fight!

yeah, i can't even get off the ground...I read in the message board a tutorial but that isn't doing anything...

[FlyXwire]

Difficulty doesn't prove a sim is realistic.

Compare the RS flight models to historical reports, or watch Memorial Flight's videos, or talk to pilots who have flown authentic and/or replica Great War aircraft. Then compare the effects acheived in-game against the historical record........both in getting off the ground, and with the sim's in-the-air combat results.

The adherents to RS claim it to be realistic, and think "degree of difficulty" proves it so, but I think have just manufactered something completely insular.

Why do few people fly RS, because of this notion that difficulty means realism, but mostly what has been acheived is a lack of playability, and therefore a lack of general accessability by the flight sim community at large.

Finally, were WWI aircraft difficult to fly? Certainly so in comparison to modern aircraft, but in what areas was this difficulty seen..........with the lack of harmonized controls, with adverse yaw, and gyroscopic precession, and with difficult engine management, etc.........how much of this is actually enabled in RS.........not much!

So where does this difficult handling displayed by the RS flight modeling come from, and what is the historical record that it's based on, and where are the flight parameters that enable "WWI flight characteristics" within the Targetware flight engine code, and then contemplate how "beta" flight models can go through a myriad of changes, and are still assumed to have been "realistic" in the past, and in their present form too, but then after future inevitable corrections come along also.........just when are we to accept a version's final realism anyway???

Bottom line.........make the sim accessable and the flight modeling plausable, then maybe people will fly it.

Sorry they won't be compromising the fm to make it easier. You have to use rudder and forward stick in some of the planes. The two seaters are easier to take off then the fighters. You have to remember the planes were not very stable in flight and this is replicated. It took me awhile to get off the ground, I asked others who were there. I also found my old MS stick was way to sensitive to the game and I had to do some tuning to get it working. Now that I have, I can take off every time using the proper amount of rudder and forward stick at first, and then transitioning into backstick and neutral rudder once the plane has enough air to stabilize its roll.

Alot of the aircraft rock back and forth because they are naturally tail heavy. Thus you have to use some forward stick to hold them in place otherwise they stall while rolling on the runway and thus rock as one wing and then the other stalls itself and drops lift. The camel is the worst for heavy tail, you really have to push the stick forward to keep the stall while rolling from happening. I can see why the thing killed so many of its pilots!

The Alb CI is very easy to fly and isn't bad in combat if you leave the bomb load off of it. I took down a DH2 with one recently, thanks to the auto-gunner observer.

SO yeah it's very hard to learn especially if you are used to arcade simms where little management on takeoff is needed.

One thing that is missing right now and will be added is torque for rotary planes. When that happens the rotary effects will make the camel and dr1 even more difficult to fly. I personally can't wait, after spending 2+ years in red baron where you can fly upside down all day and not have the engine stall out, this is a very refreshing change to me!

Just ask questions in the RS server of other people and they will take the time to help you get off the ground. Just use the Alb CI at first and watch that you use rudder and a little forward stick till it gets rolling good!

[FlyXwire]

Originally Posted by Chiggy_v

One thing that is missing right now and will be added is torque for rotary planes. When that happens the rotary effects will make the camel and dr1 even more difficult to fly.

Understand that engine torque is not rotary-induced gyroscopic precession.

Instead of conforming yourself to the sim's truncated flight parameters, best understand WWI-era flight dynamics, then you'll be able to compare what's "real", and what's merely a product of missing code.

Until a time when the TW engine enables gyro, and adverse yaw, and floating rudder sensitivity, etc., claims to realistic flight modeling will always be premature (and a bit over-blown at that).

In the meantime people try the sim and leave it..........perhaps it would be a good idea to try and figure out why?

Maybe it's not that the rest of us WWI simmers are merely arcade-only capable, maybe RS has some real playability issues that need to be worked out instead.

i dont know about lack of goodness up in the air, but i do know that the lack of ability to get off the damn ground is turning many away. I also know that any rudder or aileron adjustment while trying to take off only quickens death.

[ww1 ace]

I've been on TW for a year and a half already and it must be the worst game engine i've played. The graphics are great, but the game play is totally screwed up. It is very hard to turn without stalling for me, while others can fly perfect. I say TW is just plain unrealistic!

What joystick do you use ace? I've had to tweek my old ms stick to get it to stay at the edge of the stall envelope. Once I did that it because a different game and my kill/death went from <1.0 to 1.58 at the moment. If you place the stick settings by manually editing the stick file you can change the movement range and make the stick less sensitive.

As for understanding wwi flight, while no expert I understand torque and rotary effects and I also understand you are an ex TW person so I can handle the bias FX.

To me the game is 100% emersion into a barn burning duel to the death up close and personal. We had 10 guys in the server flying lastnight and it was a blast seeing those camels and dr1's dueling it up. Flames, gas leaks elevators sticking, sweating trying to keep the thing up and out of guns while trying to line up that pesky camel that just zoomed up and past you was a blast lastnight.

I want away with the feeling that I was in combat. I've not felt that in another wwi simm of late!

[David_Layton]

I have talked with Fred Murrin (DrI) and an old friend who owns the Tomlinson Pup replica with real LeRhone and Vickers. (They have the proper ATF clearance)

Both state that once the takeoff roll begins and hte plane hits about 10 15 mph, the torque effect goes away and the airflow over airframe stabilizes the situation.

Camel's unique weight placements are another story. Hope to hear about Fred's flights in his Camel reproduction.

[ww1 ace]

I fly with a Logitech Wingman Extreme.