That's why I'm eagerly anticipating the DF mode, where we can get some altitude and go stalking without time constraints!

I do okay in the NP17; I get advantage by experience in type that usually mitigates the disadvantage of machine itself.

Most guys spend some time in all the planes, which means they're only good in them. I take the tact that being familiar, really familiar in one aircraft is the way to go - which has obvious downsides as well. My takeoffs in the Camel, for instance, best the Wright brother's first flight durations in distance, altitude, and time by about a third, but not much more!

I suffer a similar fate in IL-2, where I've made the Hurricane IIb my personal mount. It's usually outclassed by my opponents, but I can make my little Hurri sing! A squaddie has remarked more than once that I get it to do "impossible" things, but really I just know it really well. The best is when someone says I'm hacked, owing to maneuvers folks aren't used to seeing it perform, or when some 109 pilot assumes that since I'm in a Hurri I'll be flying at 3,000 feet or lower and doesn't climb sufficiently.

Add in that most fights wind up low and whirling about within the NP17's energy band (and on the low side of the enemy's plane) and it's not so bad!

I don't fly online, or do so very rarely. While the T&T server has really done a great job in mission building/setup, the format itself doesn't lend itself to the type of flying I want to do. I want to skulk about and shoot down balloons and the odd man out of formation, which means I'd be dragging out the cooperative style format for everyone else. I want to escort bombers and recons, protect balloons, and do all the stuff that isn't really bread-and-butter of dogfighting missions.

Oh, they could but those planes are not modelled (SS IV and BMW powered Fokker D.VII examble).

Cool stuff, ideally i want to make the DR1 my mount of choice, problem is Im rubbish at it. Even in these early days there are still a lot better than me with it.

I hear what you say about DF servers, I also want to fly off, get decent height and maybe alone or with a buddy go hunting. That would be my ROF nivarna.

Until then Ill just keep on dying in more an more hilarious ways at T & T lol.

What time/time zone/days of the week is the server usually populated?

Im on GMT so im on during evenings etc.

There are a lot of yanks on there though depending on the time, busier at weekends etc.

WWBrian could probably give you an indication, but AFAIK its pretty busy 24/7

From about 2000 GMT to 0200GMT, it's usually got some yanks but as Squid says - T&T is getting more and more to the point where there's always at least two or three guys on.

Which is why we're eating upwards of 15GB of bandwith a day

Tactical considerations simply don't have the same weight in a game as they do in real life.

In real life, pilots would typically run if they didn't have the advantage. If the enemy was spotted above, you would try to either run or SLOWLY maneuver to try and get altitude. If the enemy was below, you would attempt to come about for a surprise attack and would be looking more to protect your exit strategy rather than fixating on your target. Furballs were rare and the rule was a hit and run or a standoff through maneuvers.

Engagements in WW1 were often quickly over, or indecisive. Pilots were more concerned with escaping with their lives than with making kills. The overwhelming majority of the pilots were dead within weeks of their debut if they weren't cautious or INCREDIBLY skilled and lucky. A cautious pilot who only struck when he carried the advantage often gained enough experience to take more risk in that he learned to identify the mistakes of others and could exploit them. Thus we hear much of the glorious dogfights of the greats who had the wits to survive them and suffer from a somewhat inaccurate portrayal of what most of the Great War was like.

While energy management and tactics certainly cant hurt in a simulator, it is important to remember that the situations one is put in during a game are far more intense, protracted and chaotic than those in real life. Perhaps the focus should be less on energy management and more the situational awareness involved in knowing when to engage and disengage/run.

The most important historical/tactical consideration may be this: the great majority of the aces were poachers that were excrutiatingly discriminating about what terms they would fight on, or gunnery experts who could stay at arms length from most of their opponents.

They were not knights, but hunters.

Yes, the glories of the Refly button have ruined us!

Flight sims by nature have to be unhistorical in application, though, as we expect and demand every encounter to be combat, and every combat to be resolved by a downed plane.

The AI is programmed to engage and keep engaging in most cases, when historically they'd leave off and maintain altitude and advantage, looking for easier game and/or a guarantee of making it home.

One of the initial complaints about the AI in both RoF and IL-2 is their unwillingness to really mix it up with the player; faster aircraft would either run away in a large extension from the player, making it a case of chase-chase-chase-quick-snap-shot-chase-chase-chase, or in the case of IL-2, the AI simply climbing away from the player and refusing to double back and engage.

In the latter, lower AI will run from the battle for home if damaged, which I think is completely reasonable but has often been criticised.

I'll agree on SA and picking fights, which is what I was hinting around about with DF servers. Only in a server where one can join or end at any time can the protacted amount of time for a player to pick and choose is possible. Many is the time where we've let a group of bombers go on their way to a target, waiting for them on the return (where they tend to be spread out and their escorts less attentive) in our IL-2 server for just that reason!

A very timely thread!

I've gotten a couple of friends into ROF and we were server hopping some last night...sheesh, disaster.

It was most disheartening getting waxed again and again, no matter which side or plane I chose. Seemed like I'd fly a few minutes to the CAP zone, then either catch a glimpse of the enemy for a moment before getting shot down, or suddenly catch some rounds, get wounded, and get a couple turns in before losing situational awareness and crashing.

I flew for over 30 years in RL and am well aware of energy management (ye gods, 15000 hours or so in all weather, hurricanes, thunderstorms, blizzards with never a scratch!), yet every time I get in an online fight within mere seconds I'm in a low speed, wallowing like a drunken pig situation, easy meat. I never seem to have this problem in RR, but online it feels like I'm flying a machine with half the power and maneuverability of one I just flew offline...

Obviously more practice is needed, but I'll be watching this thread for more helpful info, thanks!

[MF] Gunloon

I hear you Gunloon, after a few weeks away from ROF due to real life issues im a fish in a barrel.

I dont know if i have gotten worse or everyone else better. Probably both. That said the online experiance seems much more social than ever before.

So despite the lack of kills im having as more fun than ever.