To many fights

Hi and hello all you out there! It's me again. I've decided to ask you a question that has troubled me almost from the very beginning of my Red Baron 3D career. I think that there are too many fights in the game. In reality not every patrol contained fighting. Mostly patrols ended without events. Just a flight over the trenches.

In the game this is almost impossible. In the campaign modus there is a fight in almost every patrol and that is annoying. In that way you can easily score many planes in very short time. The real pilots were not so happy and had to work hard for their orders, if you understand what I mean. It's a fault in the authenticity of the game. Have you any ideas of changing this or am I the only one that worries about downing to many planes?


Another point is that in the auto pilot modus the flight leader always attacks the enemies however outnumbered you may happen to be. Mostly following him is suicide but you have to do so. Any ideas about that?

If there were a realistic number of uneventful flights then the sales of that game would probably go into the toilet. Why do people buy that game? The have A to A fights! So if you want any hope of achieving any popularity and sales you had better give the public what it wants, which is fights.
Air to Air combat, not historical simulation of actual operations, is the whole point and purpose of that game. In such a setup, campaign games are merely senario generators that generate "more likely scenarios."

Joe

While it is true that many patrols ended without contact, and turning tail when vastly outnumbered is the best option, that wouldn't translate into an exciting game for the masses.

Somewhere out there there must be hacks that could make the adjustments you would like, but I don't know where to find them.

But realistic numbers of patrols on the one hand and unrealistic numbers of fights on the other hand don't fit together. I don't worry about the fights in particular. All I want is a little bit more reality. For example the enemy fighters don't break up a fight. A real pilot would have done so. Not always whith succes, like Voß or Hawker, but they tried to escape to save their lives.

[Lufbery]

Somewhere out there there must be hacks that could make the adjustments you would like, but I don't know where to find them.

Von Tom's Campaign Manager (do a Google search for that term) has a function that allows you to adjust how often you fly during a week. That function actually takes advantage of a setting in the game's INI file. By reducing the total number of flights in your career, you can end up flying only two to three times a week.

This can simulate only encountering the enemy at a lower frequency than the default game. It can also simulate time off for bad weather, etc. In other words, you fly more often, but as a player, you only fly in those missions where there is enemy contact. It's not a perfect solution, however, because your log book only shows hours that you've actually flown in the game.

Added: Go to Wings of Valor for a huge list of RB3D resources, including the campaign manager.

Regards,

>unrealistic numbers of fights on the other hand
>don't fit together.

The RB world is compressed between 0 and 6500 ft IIRC. Which causes a greater density of aircraft in the same airspace. The campaign only alights a few squadrons each mission though.


cam

[timjnf]

Another thing to keep in mind is the number of hours in the cockpit you have compared to the hours the real pilots had. If you're like me, you have hundreds of combat hours. In other words our sim time has given us far more experience than the real pilots did. Theoretically, we should all be much better, especially against the AI, than the real pilots were against their counterparts.
Also, if you're like me, you've had the benefits of being reincarnated after all those fatal mistakes, after taking chances you might not have taken had this been the real thing.

[Shooter]

It is interesting to hear all of this. I have none of the patches and run vanilla only. I find, however, that it is easy to have no-contact missions. First rule of thumb, if you control mission assignments (ie: you be the Rittmeister-in-charge or his Entante equivalent), fly only barrage patrols. Second, do not fly on auto pilot. Third rule, do not follow the flight plan. Go somewhere else.

Somebody with more on-the-ball than I have once said out here that although many of the pursuit a/c in the Great War could achieve higher altitudes, the vast majority of combats occurred below 10,000 ft, and mostly below 6,000. Ergo, the assumptions behind the flight model are not all that unreasonable.


Shooter sends