The hun in the sun bit was an attempt at a joke. Sorry 'bout that

The sudden appearance from nowwhere is definitely possible but mathematically unusual. I looked at the code tonight and noticed that my speed calculations for start time were low. Increasing the travel speed will decrease the wait to activate time which in turn should cause enemyplanes to activate a bit sooner - hopefully before the player arrives.

In the meantime it should not happen very often.

lol, no worries.

It's not a big problem, this is the only time it's happened just though I'd let you know.

Really enjoying 10.3, many thanks again for a fine version. If I may, a few questions.

My flight was tasked with an escort mission (we are the blue triangle in screenshot). We picked up the escorted aircraft (RE8's, the blue shield) and they took us well off the waypoint path to the front, as seen below--click to enlarge image. The result was that for much of the mission we flew over villages and airfields without buildings (compare Cachy & its airfield on left side vs. Villers Bretonneux and airfield on right side of image).

I know within the mission generator there is a 'draw distance box' for ground objects surrounding the waypoint path beyond which buildings etc. don't get rendered. I believe it is set at 10 km as delivered, so I've increased that to 50 km, but are there any hidden ramifications??? I mean, if you aren't within a certain visual distance of a village it won't get rendered anyways, so is there a reason for the 10 km limit? Mission load times have drastically decreased (yeah!) with last patch, which I think was the concern if not mistaken.

Regards!

I think the concern is to simply improve performance, load times have always been faster for PWCG missions than career missions, even before 1.22

The config files contain all possible ground objects. Only those that might reasonably be encountered are included. That parameter is the distance outside the waypoints to include objects.

I have to check the code but the fact that it is an escort mission makes me think it might be a bug. Escort missions have always been odd (read pain in the a$$) because the actions of the escorted flight mean as much or more than your flight, which means a lot of non-standard logic. If I am only considering your unit's waypoints then not enough ground objects will be included. I have to make sure that I also consider the escorted flight's waypoints in the bounding box.

I'll look into it. Thanks for the report.

I wonder Pat if it would be possible to introduce attrition in PWCG? Example, player and allies kill 10 enemy planes on 1/1/1917, come 1/2/1917 no or very few enemy planes are in the sky?

I heard the same question voiced in Red Baron forums, and the answer was that losses were made good very quickly, at least in terms of getting another warm body. Empty seats were filled in very short order. It would be a pretty significant amount of record keeping for a situation that really only lasted a few days.

I do simulate replacements in your squadron. New pilots are generally lower in rank and skill. Your squadron mate's skill improves as they fly missions and even more so if they score. They will be promoted and, when they fly with you, will fly at a higher AI level. So it does pay to take care of your virtual squadron mates. Not too much though - if the get very good they are promoted out . Higher ranking (and therefore generally more skilled) pilots do get transferred into your squadron, but that is much more rare.

Oh okay, wasn't really sure if it would be a historically accurate thing to do or not but it popped in my head so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Thanks for the info about the squad mates though, I wasn't aware that they actually improved over time, I already try to take good care of them but maybe now I'll try doubly so.

Finally got a chance to fly 10.3 and It's great. Loving the new claims system although I'm not sure what criteria are used since my ghastly wingman refused to confirm two of my victories which were destroyed right in front of him.

Somebody is going to be getting grated soap in his porridge tomorrow morning.

Timer is excellent also, It takes me a while to get Facetrack sorted out usually so I've bumped it up to 60 seconds which gives me plenty of time to get settled.

Jimmy weren't claims historically only allowed to be confirmed by ground crews anyways?

Also I have another question Pat, if I kill an Ace will he be dead(such as Richtofen) or will he come back until he died on his historical date?

I just got a news clip of his death in my Se5 career because we passed the date of his historical death(04/21). If I kill him before that will I get the same news clip as well?

Lastly! I have another, "quirk?" to report, I got another escort mission, this time instead of the enemies spawning above me they were just there already harassing the squad I was meant to escort.

Although this was a fantastic mission, once I arrived there were five Pfalz D.IIIa's attacking a group of pups(couldn't figure out what kind of two seater) and then as the fight progressed two more squads of five Pfalz joined the fight. It was pretty intense.

I got three kills, one of which was denied(love the new claim system as well), but lost all my pilots somehow.