Have a look gentlemen

RoF news

Slightly later variant, D-IV, couldn't find a picture of the DII in flight, but love the colour scheme!

cool looking planes they have comming out.

Wish they would fix the AI so it could be a single player game.

Halberstadt DII was a long wish from us...Water looks awesome and I do hope they will put map on sale too. Weapon mods I will but tommorow. Also 2 planes I dont have (still I wont buy floatplanes) as thanks to Halbie.
But I do hope they will fix flight models of existing planes...to show they care for MP folks too. Then I will buy everything I dont have anad another account.
Oh, and...say thanks to 3d party folks ..mainly because of them we got Halberstadt DII so early...wink wink

I just realized i bought a weapon mod but there's no sale! The price is the normal one?!
How come?

Sale starts tommorow as you can read from the news blog....

"To kick off the start of the Holiday season we have launched a special sale on Weapon Mods! It will last from October 31th through November 5th."

D'OH! Just saw it.
My bad, whatever, 3 buck are more than ok.

Obviously no hard feelings! JUST HAPPINESS!

I have ordered every single thing to support this sim, but I have decided not to bother any further. I want to stress this is not an ultimatum to the developers. For a while I had hopes they were fixing the more seriously broken FMs but instead they fixed a small number of the planes and left the rest with some very dubious performance/FMs (eg Pup, Camel, Fokker Triplane, Bristol Fighter, Pfalz D.IIIa, Albatros Scouts and the Nieuport 28).

A perfect example: For years now the Alabatros D.Va scout which should be capable of ~117mph at 1000m are ~18mph too slow at that altitude.

I understand their business model and that they don't have the resources but for me the relative performance of contemporary aircraft in a flight sim is paramount. It is far more important to me than some bit part playing sea planes (again I understand they need to release planes to make money). IMHO when you have too many WTF head scratching FMs or aircraft performance figures that have not been fixed for years it's time to accept it isn't going to get sorted.

Sorry if this brings a downer to this thread but I have now come to the conclusion that RoF is a collection of some excellent and some very dubiously modeled WWI aircraft. Unfortunately from my standpoint the badly modeled planes kinda put a downer on an otherwise excellent sim.

No, the Devs have done their homework and have it more or less correct with a top speed of around 175 kmh.

The 187 kmh (117 mph) which everyone throws about, even they can never produce the source, appears most probably to be the speed recorded by the D.IIIau engined Alb D.V prototype Albatros entered in the 1st fighter competition. The Fokker D.VII with a D.IIIau engine recorded top speeds of 178-189 kmh in various tests in 1918. I highly doubt a production Alb D.V with a D.IIIa engine could do the same.

ps - the new Halb looks good.

I highlighted the important parts in red for you. Assuming is not something that should be done when it comes to FMs. Also you chose to address only one minor point in my post, what about the other aircraft I listed? The devs have no problem fitting a Pfalz D.XII with a BMW engine, I don't think historical accuracy can be presented as one of their strong points.

Lets play your assumption game for a moment though... The (l916 era) Albatros D.IIa with a 160hp engine had a top speed of 109 mph, see image attached.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b58/ICDP/Page4.jpg

Were these also numbers taken from the "1918 fighter competition". Are we to believe a D.Va with a 180hp DIIIa engine had a lower top speed than a real D.IIa? According to the stats in RoF? (real D.IIa 175 kph, RoF D.Va 170 kph). Or even better how about a real D.IIa with a 160hp engine being faster than the 180hp engined RoF D.IIIa?

So an identical fuselage, more drag due to higher lower wing area but somehow faster, and with a lower powered engine to boot? These are the head scratching issues I was referring too in my 1st post.

What are the other points in your post? You listed aircraft, but not what their inaccuracies are. If you have them present, then please present them.

I'd like to know as well. Considering the last person to complain about a plane (a Dr1 compared to the Camel) could only compare the two but didn't understand the aerodynamic differences, I think it would make sense to list the grievances and inaccuracies rather than just a plane's identification while leaving out what it's deficient in.

yes, you allude to a good point.

A lot of the WW1 data is missing and the Devs have to make educated guesses as to what the real data is.

Is the real top speed of a D.Va 187 kmh which is the figure you see bandied about in many books or 165 kmh which is what the Albatros factory said was the official top speed?

There have been many speed figures given for the Alb. II-V series from various tests, almost all fall in the 165-172 kmh range.

You have one test of a Alb. D.II with a D.III engine which recorded a 175 kmh speed. Is that an outlier or a reliable test?

Many German pilots were disappointed with the D.V which was only a marginal improvement on the D.III. The D.Va packed on an extra 80 kilos in an effort to strengthen the wings.

The Devs chose to model the Alb. D.II-D.Vs on an average figure, around 175, which is as valid a method as any other.

There is a difference between saying you do not agree with the Devs interpretation of the data and saying they are "dubiously modeled".

My apologies for not being clear. By dubiously modeled I mean some scouts are modeled towards the lower end of the various reported performance figures (Pfalz D.IIIa, Albatros Scouts). While others are modeled towards the higher end of the various reported performance figures, Fokker Dr1, Camel, Pup, Bristol Fighter. What we then end up with is a discrepancy in relative performance compared to pilot accounts. For example in real life the Pfalz D.IIIa was never regarded as a great scout and would spin readily, yet it is one of the best dogfighters available in RoF on the other hand it much slower in RoF compared to RAF test data taken from a captured model.

These discrepancies will inevitably lead to strange behavior occurring both online and offline. Nieuport 11s eventually chasing down Albatros D.IIs for example, or Halb CL.II two seater with DIIIa engine keeping pace with much lighter and less draggier and similarly engined D.IIIa.

We have veered way off topic here, this thread is about the Halb D.II. I am delighted it is being released and it will be a great early war addition. While I don't intend to purchase it the reason is purely down to personal choice, due to the lack of progress in fixing the FM/scout performance "head scratchers" I allude to.

Agree with you on that matter....but then, an clerget Camel shouldnt be able to catch an Albie which is the case in ROF...whatever the source you take - its plain wrong..

but lets stay on topic...

what do you think, how the new map will change the MP, once introduced, as not everyone would/could cash for teh new map?

Yes, another example of an FM "head scratcher"



It will be definitely cause a split online. Any servers that cycle maps will have no choice but to leave the channel map out as the number of people forced to leave the server would be a problem.

I have my own theory on that...but will save it for another time. I think we all agree that there are various FMs in the game that could stand some tweaking, although we probably won't necessarily agree on which ones or what tweaks.

Back on topic, I am really looking forward to the Channel Map. It looks really good. I especially want to see more RNAS action. RNAS squadrons ranged up and down the coast, even getting into dogfights as far north as Zeebrugge.

Do I smell that you have the only document (in existance) that "proves" clerget engined Camel could catch an Albie, although all the sources we have claim it couldnt (including all pilot accounts from both sides in the war)?



Would be cool to takeoff from an aircraft carrier with the Pup (with Pup that has corrected climbrate, that is )

well no, the issue is probably more complicated and I don't really have an answer. The facts and the problems/issues as I see them:

1. According to tests, a perfect 130 hp Clerget Camel could reach 113 mph as in the game. An Alb D.Va is either at 109 or 116 mph.

2. According to field tests conducted at St-Omer, some production Camels matched the tests results, some did not. Although it is not clear whether this is caused by normal variations in WW1 aircraft or by production quality issues.

3. British license built Clerget engines were supposed to be of poorer quality than the french built models (more on that below), but according to production records, of the 1500 or so Clerget engines the RFC accepted in 1917, 879 (58%) came from France.

4. According to some sources, most of the quality issues with the Clergets built by Gwynnes, the main British supplier, had been resolved by the end of 1916.

5. The issue with the Clergets appears to be more of a design issue, the piston ("obdurator") rings wore out prematurely, sometimes failing completely in as little as 15 hours. As they wore down, it would cause a loss of compression/power in the engine. However, the Clerget was a very simple design and a complete stripping/overhaul of the engine could be done at the squadron level in as little as half a day. The RNAS, which had a very strict maintenance schedule, do not appear to have had the same issue with their Clergets in the Triplane which suggests there may have been a maintenance issue with the RFC squadrons.

6. Even if some Camels had performance issues, this may be more of an operational rather than a tactical issue. As in all Air Forces, the best pilots would get the best planes and poor performing planes would either be left behind or abort back to base, so the planes the Germans fought would usually be the best condition Camels.

So the situation is not entirely clear.

The bigger point however is what would be the appropriate solution?

I think we can all agree that the current situation where 100% of Camels are faster than 100% of the Alb D.Vs 100% of the time is not ideal. However, I dont think making 100% of the Alb D.Vs faster than 100% of the Camels 100% of the time is the solution either. An ideal solution would be if performance was variable within a certain defined range to take into account production variations/maintenance issues so that when a Camel matched up with a Alb D.V, neither pilot would know which is faster...

...it would certainly make online dogfights more interesting.

Wonderful, yet another thread that gets derailed into a flight model debate.

I know.. I was just trying to give people a heads up on some good news

...and what's the deal with airline food??!?!

This is hardly anything new, though. ROF, Il-2, LOMAC, EAW, AOE, any sim with multiple modeled aircraft (as opposed to single-plane study sims) get FM debates tossed around.
I've witnessed it for over 20 years, there more things change...



The Jedi Master