Get it at ...

http://www.wingsofhonour.com/riseoffligh...ameplay.en.html

ROF Campaign is an offline campaign. It pretty much handles everything that doesn't happen in the air.

You create a pilot and assign him to a squadron. Campaigns can be created for French, German, British, and American squadrons. Squadron transfers are implemented.

Your pilot's squad mates will be created with him. You fly missions and report the results. Your squad mates live, die, score victories, and improve. Some might even get promoted and transfer out. You can review your squadron's status on a chalkboard. You can look at each individual pilot on his report.

You generate mission and fly them. Missions can be front patrols, offensive patrols, or CAPS. Two seaters squadrons perform recon, artillery spotting, and bombing missions. A detailed mission description is presented. Enemy squadrons
will be performing similar missions.

Waypoint icons are implemented so your mission path will appear on your in game map.

Everything is heavily randomized so no two missions will ever be quite the same. Other flights are going about their business so interaction is natural. No "go to this spot and when you get there there will be two scouts or three seaters". You don't know when you will have an encounter, what altitude you will be at, what altitude they will be at, how many, etc. Weather is also randomized (future improvement: adjust for seasons).

The mission generation algorithms are the heart of this thing. Much effort has been put into creating heavily randomized missions that appear natural and still provide for an enjoyable experience (o.e. enemy planes more often than not should be around ... but sometimes not).

FAQ/Issues:
Q: I click on the jar and winace (or some other extractor) opens.
A: Disassociate files of type jar from your extractor. Jars are really just zip files with a different extension. Some extractors, when they are installed, include jars as a file type.

Q: My computer can't handle the missions. Performance is horrible.
A: open RofCampaign\Data\RofCampaign.config. Set the base flight parameter for your side to zero. This will reduce the number of friendly flights.
If it sill happens, reduce the enemy flights to 0. Increase opposition flight odds 100.
Improvements are coming int terms of performance options.

Q: The skies are empty.
A: Increase opposition flight odds 100.
Improvements are coming int terms of pathing to make encounters more likely. This should help quite a bit.

Q: My takeoff position is messed up.
A: Send me a PM with the airfield and squadron. I will look into it.

Fantastic! Thank you for all your hard work on this. Released on my day off too!

Cool Patrick. Much appreciated.

Jason

Patrick, thanks for all the hard work!

Definitely gonna give it a try!

HT

My first user made campaign. I can't wait to dig in. Your efforts are really appreciated Patrick. Thanks.


edit: Patrick, am I missing something? I'm not sure where to put this so the generator will find the path it needs.

I tried it stand alone fextracted within a temp folder. I tried it extracted in RoF/Data/Missions. Both times when I go to create mission (after inserting name, date, and squad) it can't find path.

Just put the folder "RoFCampaign" from extracted zip into the RoF main directory.

wow, very nice. gonna try it out now

Just tried three missions. The first one was with 148Sqn flying Camels. Long flight to the front. No contact. Cycling through externals showed that there were several formations of DFW's circling their airfields approx 35km behind the lines. They didn't appear to have any other waypoints than that.

Second mission was similar. Third one, I transferred to 201Sqn at Le Targette. Nice and close to the front line. Gameplay was in slow motion and not really playable by any stretch. Going to externals to try to work out what was causing it, I counted 24 entente aircraft. Spads, Se's and Camels. Plus a further 25 DFW's, Pfalz and albatri.

I'm hoping the numbers of aircraft can be controlled later on. Such a blistering number of targets would be fine in most other sims, but RoF doesn't seem optimised yet to handle such numbers.

D'oh! Thanks. I should have re-edited my post. I figured it out and flew a DR1 mission. 78kms on one leg? No contact, though like Feathered I cycled though the views to see Sopwiths escorting Bregets (sp). My side also had Pfalzes about 1500 meters up.

I think this has great potential, but want to try it out more before I comment further.

Thanks again Patrick. The work for the community is greatly appreciated.

I tried to fly several more missions. Spawn points are wonky. The planes face the hanger tents. That's not a huge issue for the human pilot but the AI clips their wings on the tents. I noticed it the first time, but it was me and my copilot. This last 2 times it was a squad. Each time they were about 15 feet from the hanger and they 'tried' to roll between the hangers only to clip the wings.

Brilliant idea and execution (some bugs, as always, are to be expected).

I don't own RoF - so I just tried it "strictly offline" and to generate a mission report. Couldn't select the type of planes shot down for each claimed victory - is that read directly from the game directory?

This will totally change the way RoF is played offline.

Flew another couple of missions. Still no contact however.
Taking a peek at the externals I counted 15 AI aircraft per side. All flights were widely spaced on the map and very far from the front line (30 mins into the mission). Game performance was again very slow due to the amount of aircraft.

Interestingly, all aircraft were flying at extreme height. Something in the region of 20,000ft.

I think the basics are well covered. The gui is easy to use and the system shows great promise.
User defined settings would be a great addition if at all possible in the future. The current version with all planes spawning at the start of a mission is a bit of a resource hog though. It's great to be flying around, knowing that there are plenty of other aircraft out there somewere (an innovation that has eluded the default campaign so far).

It would be a welcome feature if the mission had proximity-activated spawn points for most aircraft, rather than having random flights orbiting in distant areas behind the lines. Fly over grid such and such, and a trio of Spads appear nearby. That sort of thing.

Bloody jood job getting it this stage already. I'm looking forward to watching it progress.

In general seems very interesting, but I noticed couple of issues. First is mission desing. At my first mission (Jasta 11 with Dr.I) wind was set to 11m/s (from W). That lead to pretty hilarious flight as my flight struggled to even to reach frontline. Couple of first waypoint alt was set to 4km so that didnt help either as AI tried to climb aswell. Now after reaching fronline (which took long, long time) second set of waypoints were back to SE so now we had wind our back. My plane actually went so fast that AI blowed its engine So I think weather is set to way too extreme as AI cannot handle it that well.

Second issue that I noticed is combat report. I actually could make report (2 kills) and press accept button many times. Now campaing log recorded those two kills every button press (so If I pressed accept button 3 times I could get 6 kills, etc).

WTF?

The plane flies relative to the wind. So a following wind causes you to reach your next waypoint faster, but in no way should it alter the handling or aerodynamics as experienced by the pilot/engine.

If this is an accurate description of your mission then there is a serious flaw in Neo[]'s FM...

Well, it is. Didnt check speed, but engine did die by itself (might be because of altitude also. Some in RoF forums have said Oberursel and Clerget dies at altitude if you use them over 1200RPM long enought. Anyway AI cannot handle it and blow their engines).

Only the AI blew its engine, trying to stay in formation with you? Sounds like AI had no backwind applied.

My plane blew (flown by AI) the engine.

I am digging the idea of this mod a lot, unfortunately my computer does not appear able to handle it. For me the missions are in slow motion.

Got your campaign Patrick and like it.


The problem with finding enemy planes, is the distance in which you are able to see them in ROF IMO.
Some weather conditions are reducing visability a lot.

The "high" altitude in mission(s) (I just only flew one mission jet)
is fine for me since its easier to fight in the FD7 there .
Allied AI planes (camel) try to turn fight and stall.

Sounds more like the waypoint speeds are set too high, and the AI isn't dealing with it well.

Lieste, this is the problem with the AI having the same limitations as human players and a fluke of mission design/AI interaction with it. If the WP speeds are above max, the AI are going flat out trying to make it happen, resulting in burned out engines.

Perhaps in a future version waypoint establishment will be limited in speed by type of aircraft?

That's a lot of coding, though!

Patrick Wilson sent me a new version of RoFCampaign this morning: 20091102-0901_RoFCampaign.zip

If you did not download it yet then grab it here -> RoF Resources: Gameplay Enhancements

Cheers

Dart, I don't buy that...

Blowing the engine trying to match some arbitrary ground speed while heading into the wind yes... Daft but I can see it being possible...


Turning around and blowing the engine while heading downwind, while presumably under the same waypoint type, and without a possible attempt to make-up time with higher engine settings, and I cant' see it...

Sounds like goofy FM coding. You do not fly relative to the ground, but instead relative to the wind, so whatever the wind does just helps you get lost more easily and complicates/eases landing... It doesn't change rates of turn, airspeeds or propeller revolutions.

Flew my first mission in your campaign last night.

More than an hour (certainly my longest cross-country so far in RoF).

Never saw another plane (I attribute that to the random nature of the program). Stayed at 10-11,000 feet in an SE5a.

But (the important part to me) was that my two wingmen took off with the and formed up with me when I hit the 5 key and landed with me (well, one tipped over on his nose).

Some combat would have been welcome but everything I saw seemed to work just fine.

Nice!

HT

Precisely.

It's about duration of engine stress, not wind direction.

While ground speed is greater, not airspeed; unfortunately, without a replay function and full instrumentation we can't validate either way.

I have found zero change in engine RPM's when flying into, across from, or with high winds in the same settings and altitude. If it did change, it would be an FM coding issue; I simply can't replicate the supposition that wind speed has anything to do with engine RPM's.

Try it out yourself - it's an easy one to validate!

That's why I believe it didn't matter if he had turned or not; the engines would have burned out at the time mark in the mission regardless of wind. Another possibility is that the next waypoint, which was downwind, had a lower altitude. If the WP speed was greater than the max speed of the type and the AI went for it, they could easily over-rev and burn up their motors.

I may have misunderstood, but I read it that the AI planes burnt out their engines soon after the turn, I (possibly mistakenly) took this to mean that at a speed and 'duration' the player aircraft was happy flying the AI suddenly all died while running down-wind.

BTW, I'd love to test it. Send me a replacement machine that will meet the minimum requirements and I will

Still running a 1Gb, 2.4GHz single core, non NT P4, with Ti6600 AGP4x 256MB, (also insufficient usable free hard-drive space). With luck and a following wind this may change next summer, but I see no new box till then.

I think you read it the same way I did, which is why I had to check it out!

Oh, I wish I could send you my current machine (after replacing it with something beefier!).

We really need folks like you that can take a close look at FM's using a knowledgeable eye.

And we need that replay function (c'mon, 1.009!); hands free eval is the best way to watch for goofy stuff.

I was very confident that RPM's wouldn't be tied to ground speed simply because it would be the hardest way to program the FM. It's much simpler to work the FM/engine management first and then do the positioning against the ground, factoring in IAS, direction of travel, and wind. In fact, one could have two people working nearly independantly on each - so long as they spoke in the same language conventions it would be nature's own to sew them together.

Of course I could be completely wrong on how such things are coded!

Did you successfully carry AI wingmen with you? I don't doubt for a second the player aircraft is correct, but an inadvertent bug when handling some AI function is still possible.. (especially since 'bomb-less' aircraft scripts are not human flyable (my quick skim take on the 'removing bombs from AI aircraft' thread))

I do at that!

Standard AI caveats - when they're not overly smart, they're incredibly dumb.

They fly in perfect trim, but will run their engines to the point of over-rev at times. They'll walk the stall and then dive too fast and lose a wing now and then.

The bomb thing is silly. The default layout in arming planes is "full boat." If the Camel has the option of carrying four bombs in the layout, the default is four bombs, as that is the greatest munition allowed.

In the stock campaign, one has zip to say about any plane's loadout but one's own; that's why as leader you've got to tell them to get rid of them on a fighter sweep. I don't know if Patrick has cracked that nut or not in his campaign engine.

Not to play my own horn too loud, but the RoF campaign thread I'm writing in the AAR forum is truthful in the missions; it's only the stuff outside of the missions that's complete fabrication. Lots of the good and bad of AI is in there.

Now that we've managed to bump the thread by way of derailment, let's try to get it back on topic:

Is there an updated readme file to go with the updated engine?

Thanks for the update Gremlin.. any list of changes/fixes since the last?

Also, if I may make a request for future versions. It would be nice to be able to select N.17 Squadrons. They may be available for French (haven't tried), but they are not available for British. I also was unable to do Alb D.III careers.

Patrick Wilson wrote this:



Hope this helps. Had no time at all to try out RoFCampaign.

Some notes:

1. Wind is too strong - I have already changed that.
2. Altitude is very high? In 1918 the low flights were going in at 13000 feet with high flights stacked to 20000. Note to self - make altitude type dependent.
3. Overrev on DRI. Probably due to 105 MPH flight speed for scouts. That was OK before the DRI and Camel (N17 does not figure as the campaign starts in Sept 1919) but not anymore. I had a todo to make this aircraft dependent but I will have to expedite that.
4. Poor performance - currently undocumented feature is RoFCampaign.config in the \RofCampaign\Data folder. You can change the base number of allied and entente flights. Random element is not yet changeable. Suggest setting friendly flights to zero to eliminate some of the load. I want to add a configuration screen that will allow the user to customize as much as possible.
5. Bad spawn points. This is either bad airfield configuration or I am backing the aircraft up too far. Not much that I can do about the first one other than move the squadron. The second I can fix. Please PM me with the squadron name and airfield.

6. Skies are too empty. Some notes on the mission generator and some ideas as to where it could go.

The mission generator is coded to generate possible "opposition" flights while others are totally random. The odds of generating an opposition flight is 30%. Opposition flights will fly near the player's waypoints while other flights will not. I can make opposition flight odds configurable, allowing players to increase the odds. I can also improve the opposition flight algorithm to increase odds of contact.

All missions originate within a certain radius of the player's airfield. No need to waste CPU on a flight in Verdun when you are in Flanders. However, I can improve mission generation by throwing away "garbage" flights - flights that are so far from the player as to make an encounter unrealistic.

Mission pathing will be ongoing. I have ideas and confidence that I can create a high likelihood of encounters without sacrificing the random element.

Thanks for the feedback.

One other thing - there is a memory leak in the code. If you go to too many screens it will die. Needless to say I will try to fix this.

Thank you for the info. Once this thing gets dialed in a bit I think it will be a very popular tool to add some life to the offline aspect of the game. Thanks for your work on this!

You should post this in the "3rd Part Apps" section on the RoF forums as well. There are still several people who go there for info and don't know about these forums.

If you do, send me a PM over there and I'll make it a sticky for ya.

great stuff - thx a lot for your hard work, realy looking foreward to your next versions

I wanted to set the friendly flights to 0 to get better performance, but I am not sure witch one to lower.
The allies and entente are the same people. witch one represents the central powers in the config file?

Sticky please

I have ideas

You can say that again, thanks very much Pat!

Ming

Nice! Thanks Patrick!

New version 1.01 of RoFCampaign available for download -> RoF Resources: Gampelay Enhancements


Cheers

I just know I'm doing something dumb but when I double click on the jar file it just opens up a Winrar window showing me the contents - nothing executes.

Someone please enlighten me!

WB.

For some reason, I cannot fly the first mission. Complete slide show...worse...any input I make in key or JS buttons takes many seconds to activate. FPS is non-existent, so to speak. It's like the mission is Way too massively intense for my rig. I've tried the mission both normally, with high (Not Max'ed) graphics settings, and also will Very Low settings. Same result...Unplayable.

However, my rig plays all the other single missions available in ROF, Fly Now, etc, (and Very large, complex missions in IL2) without difficulty. Have I done something wrong with this Campaign generation? ....or is there some manual way of Down-Sizing the Campaign Generated missions? I found nothing regarding this in the ReadMe.

I see now that I might be able to delete all references to(Waypoints of)some of the Squadrons and Jastas in the "...MissionAnalysis.txt" file?? Would that be the correct way to reduce the complexity of the Campaign mission, thus making it flyable for me? I can't try that until later tonight, but it would help me before then to know if I am on the right track.

Is there some way that the ROF Campaign 'generation' could be automatically downsized/scaled by the user, similarly to the way that Laser DF Generator can be modified/scaled according to User preference?

Thanks in advance for any advice offerred.

My Rig:
Dual core E6700 Cpu
4GB DDR2 800Mhz
BFG 8800GTX w/768MB Graphics card
Windows VISTA 32bit

Although I will probably not play around with this for some time (if ever due to time constraints) I just wanted to say that I really appreceate the work you put into it.

Thanks

Whiskey (Irish?) do you have JAVA instlaled on your machine. Does not sound so. If JAVA is installed clicking on a .jar archive will start the application included in the.jar archive. Please have a look in your System Control Panel if there is an entry for JAVA. If it is not installed you should do that as advised in the release notes text on the download page.

Hope this will enlighten you


Cheers

That was it thanks Gremlin. I had assumed Java was installed as part of the Win7 installation, I now realise it was not. Problem solved now, thanks.

WB.

I am glad, that I could help. You know, Microsoft (Windwos) and Sun (JAVA) are far from being friends


Cheers

(Irish?)

Terry-Thomas Irish?

Are you insane

Ming

Here are the new features/fixes in V1.01

New Features:
Added pilot pictures
Removed "junk flights: flights that do not cross player's path within 20 KM.
Made cruise speed dependent on aircraft type
Made generation of opposition flights configurtable - See \RofCampaign\Data\RofCampaign.config
Changed campaign extension to .campaign. Loader now filters on ".campaign".

Fixes:
Fixed memory leak
Reduced wind strength
Extreme altitude: Most flights are between 2K and 5K meters. Some 2 seater flights are lower. No changes.
Made the red X work
Fixed bug in combat report: no planes show up in drop down.
Increased default opposition odds to improve contact chances.

I am going to edit the OP for FAQs. Look there if you are having any problems.

Pat, I have also made up a ReadMe downloadable on the download page if you do not mind. I have collected there some information you have posted.

WOW, thank you SO much PatrickAWilson. All those fixes, you have been busy.

Hi Patrick

I tried the campaign generator (20091105-0705_RoFCampaign) and find it very satisfying. What I liked most was that I never knew when an enemy flight would appear, how high etc. In the stock campaigns you always know when something will happen.
I scanned and scanned and scanned the skies while on patrol, always a little anxious. This is immersion for me (and no, we didn't encounter anybody, but then not every flight should encounter E/A).

There are a few small things:
1) The font is somehow very big and strange. It doesn't allow for the name of my pilot to be displayed entirely. I tried changing the fonts in the settings to ones I actually have on my system, but doesn't look like it changed anything.

2) I like the idea of always being the flight leader. But I started my campaign as lieutenant, and had the major as my wingman, the captain as wingy in my next flight.

3) Make the briefing sticky, ie. I would like to be able to re-visit the briefing after mission creation.

4) Maybe throw in some random intel from time to time, like enemy observation aircraft have been spotted north of your assigned patrol area?

5) I fly without waypoints or labels, so maybe include desired altitude for the waypoints in the briefing. Or where those completely at the discretion of the flight leader back then?

Thank you so very much for your work

Dobby

Thanks for the feedback Dobby.

1. I will probably have to make font size settable.
2. I do want to make a change such that you are not always in command of a mission.
3. That can be handled easily enough.
4. Agreed. Little points of immersion are always fun.
5. That can be done too. Maybe a brief description of every waypoint.

Right now empty skies are my #1 priority. I have been surprised by the lack of visibility. I think that I know the answer and odds are good for something within a couple of days.

When I set either of the base flight lines to "0", I get an error msg when trying to create a mission:
"No central fields available for missions" or "No allied fields available for missions" So far, I can only run RoF Campaign with settings as shown below:
ChalkboardFontKey = "Freestyle Script";
PilotFontKey = "Freestyle Script";
MissionDescriptionFontKey = "Serif";
BaseAlliedFlightsKey = 2;
BaseCentralFlights = 2;
OppositionOdds = 50;

I must be doing something wrong.

Could be an issue in the code. I'll look into it. The behavior that I want is to create missions with o friendly flights but not create missions with no enemy flights. I might not be coded properly to accomplish that. If not it will be fixed shortly.

Thanks for all your efforts.

I'm wanting to give this a try but I'm having issues with JAVA.

I'm running Windows 7 RC and cmd.exe is associated with .jar files.
I've tried changing it in the control panel but it won't.

I can get the program to run if I right click and open with Java SE Binary.
But I get an error stating the program can't find planes.txt or something.

Its looking for the files in my C:\Windows\System32\ folder instead of my Rise of Flight folder.
I think this is because I can't get windows to not associate cmd.exe with .jar files.

Any Ideas?

I have set up 2 campaigns in RoF but when I double click the .jar (as per the instructions)it just opens another folder containing a META-INF and rof folder?
Am I supposed to extract the files in the jar. to the RoF folder?

I just re-read the complete post and saw what I missed the first time, i.e. I don't have JAVA

Version 1.0.2 has been sent. Please wait for a post by Dart or Gremlin providing notification that it has been uploaded before downloading.

This one should be a big improvement to the empty skies syndrome. I ran a mission that started with friendly and enemy squadrons tangling (Use CTRL/SHIFT-F2 view). Then I got on station and got into a tangle with a patrol of Albatros AND a patrol of Pfalz. Skies should be much less friendly.

V1.02
New Features:
- Revamp of opposition flights resulting in much more contact.
- New GUI backgrounds by Seiseki
- Improved GUI arrangement
- New paper background.
Bug Fixes:
- Major bug fix to get other flights going. They just flew circles.
- Removed inadvertent display of picture file name on chalkboard

Thank you, Pat. RoFCampaign Version 1.0.2 is downloadable via -> Wings Of Honor: RoF Resources -> Gameplay Enhancements


Cheers

Cool!
Gonna check it out now

Odd that I am the only one having problems with this Application.
It now seems that it seizes hold of part of my RAM or something...I'm not technically smart enough to guess. BUT, even though I have exited the program, completely....when I try to change an entry in the RoFCampaign.config file, I can't. I am repeatedly told that the program is being used by some other application. It is not. It does not show in my windows taskbar, not in task manager, nowhere!

I cannot even simply delete the RoF Campaign folder en toto.

The only way I can 'unlock' the RoF Campaign folders/files to start afresh is to re-boot my computer. That is silly. Any idea what is up? Does this have to do with your reference to a "Memory Leak" issue???

Meanwhile, also, as I’ve said before, with the default settings of 5 and 4 for base settings, the generated mission is unplayable for me…totally freezing, delayed, worse than Slide Show...and I've yet to see any enemy aircraft closer than FAR away at extreme distances on the Map. My aircraft even on autopilot seems to be flying SLOWLY on the map...takes Forever to get anywhere....Something is just not right.

My Rig isn’t that totally horrible…and works for other RoF missions and all IL2 missions, FWIW.
Dual core E6700 Cpu
4GB DDR2 800Mhz
BFG 8800GTX w/768MB Graphics card
Windows VISTA 32bit

If you can manage it I would like to work with you. If you can send me your mission file I can try several things to isolate the cause of the performance issue. I do not experience this so I cannot test at home. What I want to do is modify the mission into several different configurations to find out what works.

Besides the issues noted - any feedback?

Would be cool if I could attack enemy aerodromes and have them all scramble at me, maybe some of them are trying to land? Well too bad for them guaranteed method to get into some serious action and definitely something that will keep me busy, wreaking havoc among the enemy and giving a damn about my orders Nobody expects the German Strike Jasta! Join RvH`s strike Jasta today!

I'd love to see some instant action option available..
With a mission description describing a certain situation like "at 2000 feet you encounter/are ambushed by, a flight of Camels/SE5s/Spads, 500 feet above/below you"

Or just the option to start in flight, because the patrols I've been flying have been very long.

Also, when you start out, the other people in your squadron always start with 0 sorties 0 victories, would be cool if you could just randomize some numbers for the ones that aren't rookies.

The scramble thingie is one of the top priorities. At random aerodromes there will be aircraft waiting to go if the player flys over and triggers them. A caveate is that the performance can't be hurt too badly by the scrambled flights.

Randomising new squadron mates is also on the to-do list. I do not, however, want to bring in aces with any regularity. There is a fair bit of logic that can go into replacements and transfers but I do intend to get there.

As for quick action I will leave that to laser's QMB. He already does it pretty well and this code is not built for it.

As for mission length, I am of the opinion that time compression in RoF is not what it should be. I fly at x8 compression and it still takes me 10 minutes to go 50 KM. A little math tells me it should take about 3.

One thing that I could do is push the scout squadrons even closer to the front. I already made an effort to get all scout squadrons within 50KM of the front, but as noted above, that still makes for a long mission. Right now much of the flying time is consumed by getting there.

Yeah, there's really something wrong with the time compression..
I flew a regular career mission today and noticed the difference instantly..

YES!!! That is exactly what I have encountered...acft proceeding at a snail's pace in spite of IAS/TAS...when running supposedly at 8X TC. I thought it was something wrong with my Rig since I have not seen much discussion of this TC 'flaw' on the Forums.

Doolittle: Is time slow compression your performance issue or is it general flight. I got the impression that these missions cause a slide show on your computer. I experience very poor time compression but once I am in normal time the missions fly fine. If your problems go beyond TC then get in touch via PM. I want to figure out what is happening.

P.S. I am working to make the campaign more configurable.

I have the same time compression issues too. It may be across the whole game though, rather than just your campaign.

I am pretty sure that what seems to be incorrect compression happens across all missions. It is more noticeable in RoFCampaign because of the more realistic distances involved. RoFCampaign missions flown without compression would be about 1 - 2 hours long, or about what they really were. In game campaign missions are much shorter.

I've noticed it sometimes, but not all the time..
When it happens the sound stops playing like it usually does when you use timecompression, but the plane is still in regular speed.. controls are still as sensitive as before and the plane basically flies like before..

It doesn't happen in career mode as often though..

Download isn't working, can anyone post another link to try this please??

It's working fine for me.

http://www.wingsofhonour.com/riseoffligh...RoFCampaign.zip

This is amazing patrick, thanks for you ongoing hard work. Im going to give it a try today and cant wait! Thanks again

Thanks for the offer of assistance. I've sentyou a PM with the Mission file(s).

Had my first go on this last night and Im impressed! So much better than stock ROF. Now the air is actually populated by both freindly and enemy aircraft, and you just dont know what you will run into.

Couple of questions though.

Are you always the flight leader on the generated mission? I tryed lowering my rank but each time all my fellow flight members would do is follow me. I actually find it cool to try and keep formation with the AI. Is this an option?

I only played 2 missions, but i noticed that both times the wind was 0 knots. Which for february seemed a bit odd. Are winds disabeled?

I noticed that there wasnt much going on, on the ground, are ground units also generated or is it purely aircraft?

Anyway keep up the great work, ill be following this with interest.

There is weather, although it is toned down at ground level. People were saying that the AI couldn't take off in 11 MPH winds. However, I have randomized the weather to be mostly clear but with varying degrees of clouds, precipitation, and turbulence.

Nothing on the ground in your version. Next version has MGs along the front.

The player will no longer necessarily be the flight leader in the next version.

Handling of rank is much more sophisticated in the next version. In the current version the player does not get promoted. In the next he will. Squad transfer handling is much more sophisticated.

The last item that I am working on is medals. Once that is in the next version will be done.

I expect to release the next version this weekend or ... more likely ... next.


...

Future plans include scrambles when you overfly an enemy airfield, balloons, ground targets.

After that in no particular order, historically accurate squad placement, squadron skins, aces, and others.

Really looking forward to squadron skins, it's something I've been thinking about as well, and one of those things that will bring historical immersion to a new level
Because there are a lot of custom skins for various jastas out there right now..

Also, would it be possible along with historically accurate squad placement, to have a map where you can see where you will be stationed?

Thanks for the update patrick. Im so excited about having manned front lines. Its something I feel has been missing from ROF since day 1.

I did another couple of missions last night. Brilliant! I was minding my business when my flight got bounced by 5 SE5a's. You really have to keep a look out as you just dont know when you can run into trouble.

I cant recommend this enough, and it looks like its going to grow into something even better.

Thanks again, eagerly looking forward to the next version

S!

Quick question ...

Do you place the ROF CAMPAIGN folder in the main ROF folder or in the data/campaign folder ?



Thanks


vK ~

place it in the main folder

Thanks !


vK ~

That would be awesome

It'll be a LOT of work to get ROF to WFP campaign standards, but I'm happy you're on the case. Thanks Patrick!

Pat has sent me the new version 2.0 of RoFCampaign. Go grab it here: WoH: RoF Resources - Gameplay Enhancements

Enjoy

V2.0
New Features:
- MGs over the front - turn this off if you have performance issues.
- More configurable parameters - see RoFCampaign.config in RoFCampaign\Data.
- More detailed front mapping.
- Player now advances in rank.
- Much more sophisticated promotion/transfer/replacement logic
- Top rank now leads the flight, not necessarily the player
- Medals. Feeling that your efforts are not appreciated? No more!
- Added pilot region - Free text input, where are you from?
- Note to German pilots, the region field is mostly for you. You can now get medals from Bavaria, Prussia, Wurtemburg, or Saxony. Enter exactly one of those choices when creating a new campaign to be eligible for regional medals. Others, just use it to add a bit of flavor.
- Extended pilot log and mission results to multiple pages for longer entries.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed index issue on offensive patrols.
- Squadron chalkboard now sorts by rank.
- Made start position configurable to prevent running into the hangars on one side or trees on the other.

Note: you will have to create a new career as the data files are not backwards compatible. If there are folks out there who would like to save an old career I can probably do a converter. My suspicion is that this thing is not being used so much at this point that people have a career that they are attached to, so I did not do the conversion (time - wish I had more to spend on this).

Regarding the German states I would suggest to offer their real names too. (Also you might check your spelling of Wurttemberg).

Bavaria = Bayern
Prussia = Preußen (or Preussen to avoid the ß)
Wurttemberg = Württemberg (or Wuerttemberg to avoid the umlaut)
Saxony = Sachsen

Thank u very much Wilson.Great tool!
A small bug report: The time acceleration does not work anymore.
2x acceleration works but 4x and 8x are the same as 2x!
Also Flightleaders dont follow assigned route and start to attack MG nests!
Ps:Will we have a Alb.DIII career in future?
Thx for reply
Horrido,DerM

The reason for Sept 1917 is the lack of a plane set - including no two seaters - for earlier periods. Once the plane set fills in the start date will go backwards.

About the flight leaders attacking ground units - sounds like I am going to need a bug fix release .

As for the time compression, that is internal to RoF. I am going to speculate here, but I think that as I add more units the RoF code is less able to handle it. It just can't do 8x compression with that many units.

Until I fix the flight leader wanting to attack ground units it might be best to turn off MGs (see RofCampaign.config - the useMGs parameter). That should also help compression as I think the little beggars are sucking up a lot of CPU.

Hi Five Digits - I can do that.

I still have to internationalize this thing but that is a chore. It might be awhile before I get there.

can you takeoff from your airfield or does the campaign start you in the air?

I noticed that my flight leader (..and maybe the enemy too) can spot opposite flights from impossible distances like he has a radar.Can u reduce their spotting abilities?
Greetings

Your flight takes off from the ground. All others are air starts.

On a somewhat related note ... the positioning of the airfield coordinates with respect to the hangars is not consistent. I have to back up starting flights a certain amount to give enough room to take off. However, what is enough on one field is too much on another and too little on yet another. With that in mind I made the backup configurable in 2.0 (see RofCampaign.config) to allow players to adjust for their specific airfield.

If you have text property files or somesuch you could send me, I'd gladly help with the German translation.

Thanks for the awesome work Mr Wilson ,I am having a problem getting the campaign started.An "Access is denied" box appears when the program tries to save to the campaign folder.This is what I have in my ROF folder,a folder called "ROF Campaign" and in that folder are 2 folders "campaign" and "data" and a "read me" file and a "ROF campaign" jar file which I double click to launch the campaign program.
Any ideas why it doesn`t save anyone ?
Thanks,
Simbo

Thanks so much for this, it renewed my interest in the sim...and actually made me buy addon planes:).

Simbo, have you got SUN JAVA on your computer? I believe you need it or there will be an erroe report.

Thanks mate,give that a go.

No luck mate,made no difference at all.

Hi Simbo - the layout is correct that you have described is correct. Based on your description I assume that the program starts, that you are able to navigate to the "Create" page, and that it fails to write after you enter the data.

Silly test, but can you go to the campaign folder and just try to create a text file? That will prove that you as a user have permission to write to the directory.

After that we have to look at Java permissions. Could there be a security setting that prevents Java from writing?

User Account Control in Vista prevents 3rd part apps from writing to the Programs folder. Try turning that off if you're on Vista/Win7 (or re-install RoF to a location outside the Programs folder, e.g. C:\Rise of Flight).

Thanks guys,but it is strange because the previous release worked !

Best compliment that I could possibly receive. Thanks.

Will it be possible to incorporate Narrative/Text post-mission reports which the user can complete in his own words ?

Doolittle: short answer: yes. Longer answer: probably not for a few weeks.

Somebody on the RoF site was asking for the same thing. I intend to provide that along with saving the entries and allowing the user to look at them in a log book.

Work in progress for version 2.1:
1. Descriptions now work in game.
2. Balloon busting.
3. Enemy scrambles on airfield overflights.

A bit more feedback.

Unfortunately, every mission I generate places the enemy aircraft FAR away, and I fly at a snails pace...and Time Compression doesn't work.. Takes 20 minutes or more to get into any DF. Getting to be not so much fun. I thought reading this thread that much more would be happening, especially in the later-released versions. <sigh>

Guess I'll sit back and wait for the next version.

It took 4 to 5 years for the developers to bring RoF to its current state and still they left out a sophisticated campaign engine for single player. Pat has been working on RoFCampaign for what ... 8 weeks? And he is working with mostly undocumented game features. Also time compression not working properly is a built in bug and nothing Pat can fix for us.

Nevertheless our feedback is important for him.


Patience my young Yedi ...

Fly for Jasta 5. They are about 10KM from the front.

Hi, Patrick: Just curious if you have had any feedback or help from the ROF developers? I haven't read through all the posts, so sorry if I missed it.



Good work and thanks for your efforts.

Not much. I haven't asked for very much either, so the lack of communication falls more on me than on them.

I will say that communications - to the extent that they have happened - have been friendly and I do think that they are happy that this is getting done. I suspect that they do not have the bandwidth to deal with this at this point.

The biggest thing that I have asked for is a mission results file. We'll see what happens.

I approached them briefly about incorporating the code into RoF. They stated that since I am using Swing as a GUI it is not compatible with their software. I replied that the GUI was only the tip of the iceberg and that the vast majority of the code is in the mission generation and not the display. No response since then. I will concede that full scale incorporation at this point is not trivial and would require resources that they almost certainly do not have.

On the plus side their communications to the community as a whole have greatly benefited me. In particular their resource guidelines are very valuable. I don't necessarily follow them to the letter, but that is my choice.

Ahhh! Good idea! Is there a list somewhere of the various Jastas' locations...a map would be even better, or coordinate locations for the RoF Map.

Meanwhile, I've transferred to Jasta 5 (required to fly the Alb DV which is not my favorite, but that's War for you...you do what the HQ people tell you to do, until you become a Richtofen-type with influence). I will report back with my results.

Thanks for all the work and responses to questions/feedback.

Great tool so far.Thank u very much!
Not sure if it can be done but..One little problem:My flightleader ALWAYS spots the enemy from impossible distance(enemies not even appear on map).He simply runs into any enemy that is in the area but is still way too far to be spotted,so in every mission we have at least two or three big doghfights resulting in complete destruction of my flight in every mission.If the flightleader would spot the enemy at a distance from where i´m beginning to the able to see small spots in the sky than we would have a more realistic outcome.
Greetings Der Mo

Jeez, first there is no action and now too much ...

Just kidding, of course. In truth I am not sure how to control this. I use "Attack" and not "AttackArea" to create engagements. I looked for a zone parameter and did not see one.

Any ideas?

One way to reduce the number of encounters is to lower the opposing flight odds (RofCampaign.config file). I jacked it up to create more action, but it could be too high. Try reducing this to create fewer engagements.

AFAIK in the editor manual it is stated that AI visibility distance is influenced by AI level (5 miles, 3 miles ... something like this). So setting a lower AI level for most of flight planes should do it i think.

No pilots at this point start at ace level. I am reserving that for actual aces. Squad mates can get to ace level but they have to rack up a bunch of kills to get there.

V2.1 has been shipped. It should be ready for download soon.

New Features:
- In game mission description is now working.
- Scrambles
- Enemy balloon emplacements
- Options: More ways to configure RoFCampaign to tailor it to your machine,
- 1.009 compatibility
- New Options: temperature varies with season, winter tiles used in winter
- Default load out for British planes changed: no more bombs.
- Performance: Many tunable parameters added. Defaults are now per Neoqb suggestions. I spent a lot of time on this to improve performance and let players tailor the mission generation to their machines. Please let me know. I strongly recommend that you use the config file to adjust mission generation. I also request that you provide feedback when you find combinations that work well for you.

Please wait for an announcement from WoH_Gremlin that V2.1 has been posted before downloading, otherwise you will get V2.0.

Here is the announcement

RofCampaign 2.1 available at http://www.wingsofhonour.com/riseoffligh...ameplay.en.html


Cheers

Great! Dlding now

Mr Wilson, the new version installs and lets me save with out any problems !
Thanks very much,I don`t know what you did but it works !.
Many thanks,

Simbo

Great update and many thanks for your continued hard work on this excellent utility.

I have a question regarding the wind conditions though. My latest mission generated a wind speed of 9 with a direction of 83 degrees. When the mission loaded my squad was ready for takeoff on a heading of 180 degrees.

The game gives wind in m/s (it would be great if they changed it to a historically accurate value - although I'm not sure if the RFC/RNAS/RAF used knots or mph at this stage but I digress a little) and I use a very rough conversion of x2 for a knots value.

Therefore, in the mission concerned I was trying to takeoff with an 18 knot crosswind. Suffice to say, my AI squadmates made it OK but I cartwheeled down the grass stip almost as soon as the tail lifted.

Would it be possible to ensure that the generated mission puts the a/c pointed into wind?

Thanks again for a great utility.

Regards,

WB.

Reading this topic from page one to twelve has persuaded me to purchase this game. Dynamic campaigns are my number one requirement for sims and it sounds like this has filled that void.

I'll be picking this up tomorrow and am quite excited to give this a go.

Thanks for this!

Whiskey:

I looked at wind layers and jacked down wind at low level. It will be in the next release.

Getting wind relative to airfield is tough because I have wind direction coded to favor west to east - the historical German wind advantage. I can't reconcile that with a variable takeoff heading (every field has a different takeoff heading).

I suppose that I could set the bottom wind layer based on airfield heading and leave the higher layers to represent the historical west-east tendency.

I have a small problem with Jasta 8 mission generation, sometimes i get waypoints outside of map. Also noticed with Jasta 56 lots of machine guns get deployed around airfield slowing down the game.

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for the reply. Excuse my ignorance but are you saying that each airfield has a 'runway heading'? I thought the idea of a grassed field area was that they would allow takeoff in any direction depending on wind conditions. Presumably the ground crews would just position the aircraft accordingly prior to flight ops.

From what you've posted above it seems like each airfield has a hard coded takeoff heading? In which case I may just have to self position for an into wind takeoff.

I realise the prevailing wind would dictate the 'average' take off direction of east to west ie INTO a west to east airflow but I'm sure these old warbirds could be adversely affected by any sort of crosswind.

Having said all that it appears the devs have got the wind direction 180 degrees out anyway - see my wind speed/direction post down below. Just to complicate matters for you!

Anyway, thanks for your continued effort with this excellent utility, I hope our needs and wants all the time don't detract from your creative enjoyment.

Regards,

WB.

I appreciate the difficulties and complications regarding wind in the mission coding. I wonder though, is it possible to deselect it as an option in setup? I usually leave it switched off in the difficulty settings to save a few precious cpu cycles, but it seems to be trapped in the ON position when I play one of your campaign missions.

Hi Ziher: The MG algorithm places MGs along your mission route. A route that encompasses a good section of front can generate lots og mGs. You can use RoFCampaign.config to adjust MGs or turn them off altogether.

UseMGs = 1; Set to 0 to not use AAA MGs at the front
MGSpacing = 2500; Space in meters between MG emplacements

I will look into Jasta 8.

Thanks.

Hi Feathered: I was not aware that the mission file affected your difficulty settings. The parameters will always be there, but if you have weather turned off I would think that should do the job.

Hi Whiskey:

Yes, orientation is based on hangar position. If I ignore it I have almost no hope of getting planes positioned for takeoff. If anything I would alter the bottom wind layer based on orientation and leave the upper wind layers (> 500 meters) alone. I would prefer to just decrease wind speed on the bottom layer.

The next version will contain support for custom skins. Both squadron skins and individual skins for your squadron and pilot are supported. It works like this:

For the player's squadron:
Check for <plane>\<Squadron Name>.dds
If the skin exists: \data\graphics\skins\<plane>\<Squadron Name>.dds ... use it
Check for <plane>\<Pilot Name>.dds
If the skin exists: \data\graphics\skins\<plane>\<Pilot Name>.dds ... use it

For other squadrons only the squadron name is used. When I get around to aces their individual skins will be supported too.

Skins will not be shipped with the RoFCampaign download due to sheer size. I want to collect skins and create a separate download. This will allow me to continue to work on the software without forcing users to get the skins every time.

Anybody up for some skinning?

Don't know if it have some interest for you:
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2888677/Re_Need_testers_for_Alpha_vers.html#Post2888677
Generic skins for USAS Spads
I'm currently working on British SPAD XIII of No 19 and No 23 Squadron, I can make some generics too if you're interested.

Here is a list of usermade skin so far: http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=112&t=4386
There are some very very talented skinners in RoF Forum:especially J5-Boman, musicman and =MR.FOX=
Boman has made a huge effort in creating Jasta 5 skins
and,..u have to check out the Jasta 11 skins made by musicman and MR.FOX,awesome!:
http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=112&t=4554
Maybe these guys can help you,they are very friendly and open minded people
or if you want i can ask them to get in contact with you?
Horrido Der Mo

Downloaded it dine - now where do I put it to function? Not in Campaigns folder thats for sure...

Put the "RoFCampaign" folder and its contents into your root Rise of Flight folder.

Place a shortut for the RofCampaign.jar file on your desktop. You'll be all set to go.

When you create a mission, it will show up in-game as a mission with the name of your pilot. In your Rise of Flight/data/missions folder you will find a *.eng and a *.mission file (the * being your pilot's name). Each time you subsequently complete a mission and then re-generate the next mission using RoFCampaign, it will overwrite those *.eng and *.mission files.

V2.2 has been delivered. As always, please wait for the announcement before downloading. The only big feature is support for custom skins. Other than that I tried to spend time squashing bugs and tajkng care of some outstanding details. Here are the new features.

V2.2
New Features:
- Support for squadron skins
- Just add a skin into the appropriate folder with the squadron's name - spaces, periods, and all
- \data\graphics\skins\pfalzd3a\jasta 10.dds
- \data\graphics\skins\se5a\Esc Sal.40.dds

- Support for personal skins within your squadron - spaces and all
- \data\graphics\skins\pfalzd3a\Hans Fleiger.dds
- AAA for balloons
- Added Prussian Medals (for Prussian pilots only)
- Set Font Size - parameterizable
Bug Fixes:
- Reduced wind speed
- Month is wrong in mission file
- Pilot rank wrong on campaign and mission screen
- Mission Title in game screen
- Moved buttons to upper left corner for larger pages
- Some users could not see buttons.
- Attached formation MCU to a separate timer
- Jasta 2 AF doesn't work - moved to new airfield.

Got em - thanks. Any squadron schemes that you have are appreciated. I am just now starting to put this together.

Hmm..still not available.Is there another link for Download?
Greetings

Sorry, found out I have a real life too.

It is available now: Go and grab it


Cheers

Thanks Gremlin!Tomorrow is last day i can play RoF for a month so i was eager for it,sorry:)

Wird Dir die Internet-Verbindung gekappt?

..Nee,bin halt nur nicht zu haus für ´nen Monat.Na dann Fröhliche Weihnachten!

How can i get this Personal Skin working?(Campaign,Mods OFF!)
Choosed a skin,renamed it with current campaign pilot´s name and put it in the skins folder:
Rise of Flight\data\graphics\skins\fokkerdr1\Patrik Schorner.dds
Doesn´t seem to work for me.All fine with the squad skins
Where am i wrong?
Greetings

After accepting a mission do you minimize the generator or close it? Thanks.

No custom skins (in any game mode) with mods off (for now)!

I have been unable to get the campaign working despite several attempts with different versions.

I am using Vista 32, Rof is installed on my E drive, I have Java installed.
The zip extracts ok and I have a Campaign folder in Rof root, in that folder are campaigns, data and read me folders and the jar file.
Clicking the jar file causes a dos window to flash up, too quick to see what it says but it looks like a program execution and then nothing.
If I start rof the only thing in the campaigns folder is the training campaign. I have turned mods on in case this was required.

Any help would be much appreciated

Dave

do you have JAVA installed on your machine?

Yep. It't there

Some folks have had problems because .jar files are associated with winzip. Disassociate .jar files from any application.

There will be nothing in your RoF campaign folder (not to be confused with ...\RoFCampaign\campaign). RoFCampaign creates mission files that the RoF games sees as single missions. After you create a mission, start RoF and look under "Missions".

You can also launch .jar files from the command line or through a batch file using:

java -jar <name-of-the-jar>

Hey Patrick!

First, I downloaded this yesterday and installed last night and gave it a try. Excellent stuff here no doubt. Thank you for putting this together.

Couple of questions. (not crits so please don't take this that way .. ) And please forgive me if these have been covered before, but I'm not reading 16 pages of forums to find out. :p So I'll ask.

A)It appeared to me that the waypoints for the mission generated are off coordinate a bit. example: I started a U.S. 103rd squadron and when I went to fly the mission, my start and stop waypoints were on top of each other, but they were about a mile off the nearest base. My aircraft started on the base though so thats a good thing. Could it be that waypoints are off a bit, or was this one just a fluke?

B) My personal aircraft seemed to be having trouble keeping up with my squad mates. (I tried both autopilot and manually to catch up but couldn't) There is a caveat with this, as I have comment on neoqb's forums about player plane speed reduced since 1.009 so that may be a "fault" of the latest patch I dunno.

C) Mission target, I had a Front Patrol generated for my first mission and was informed that there would be E/A and balloons along the front. The icon for the enemy balloons was located over my airbase and not along the front lines where I would have expected them. My squad did apparently find some AA emplacements along the front and we attacked them, but no balloons ... and we did get jumped by a flight of E/A.

D) In the pilot creation phase, under the name of the pilot it asks for a location or something, what exactly goes there? I didn't know so I left it blank last night yet the generator seemed to work just fine with the exceptions mentioned above.

Other than these, I've only flown your work once ... I plan to make up for that tonight.

Thanks for the great work!

The jar file is not associated with winzip, it is showing as a java file. What is supposed to happen when I click on it?

Hello Patrick

I am seeing some of the same issues that Snuffy is seeing. B) My a/c is unable to keep pace with my flight. C) My home field is labeled as Enemy Balloon. I do see balloons along the front with small rectangles showing their location on the map. I also see a hugh Waypoint icon on the map behind enemy lines that appears to be the spawn point for all the enemy a/c. D) I also noticed that the Pilot Name field and the Region field on the Pilot Creation page does not place an insertion bar showing where to type the text when editing the names - this is a minor point since I just figured out where the cursor should be anyway.

This is a great utility. And we have a congenial group of beta testers. LOL

OlPaint01