I wanted to see how closely WOFF can capture the feel of one of the major battles of the war. Not just missions, but the overall ambiance of the game to immerse you in that time....So, I chose the battle of Cambrai.
NewsNo complaints, spot on here!
Intel on the battleDitto!
Naturally, by this point, I was so immersed after reading up on the battle, profiles of my squad mates, German aces, and enemy intel on German aerodromes, that I was looking forward to seeing how the mission would play out on that day....
excerpt from General Headquarters, November 21st (on previous day's activities)Area of OperationsOn the 20th our aeroplanes attempted to work throughout the day in conjunction with our operations between St. Quentin and the River Scarpe.
WeatherLow clouds and mist and a strong westerly wind, with drizzle and occasional rain throughout the day, made it necessary for our pilots to fly at 50 ft. from the ground.
MissionsSettings: All Default, except for changes to air activity (see below for explanation).
I created a pilot to start on 20 November 1917 in No 3 Sqdn. Then I made a backup of this pilot so that I can keep recreating him to start on the same date each time I tried a new air activity setting. That way, I can also test the air activity of very light, light, medium, heavy, very heavy and ultra heavy on 20 November 1917.
From the RFC side of things, a major part of the battle was that many bombs were dropped on aerodromes, batteries, convoys, troops and other targets of opportunity. Also, there were about 30 reconnaissance flights and patrols that flew deep into enemy territory.
After testing, here is what I got (spoilers)
The area of operation widened way beyond what was mentioned in the communique each time I increased the air activity setting.
To my surprise, the weather turned out to be very close to what had been that day. Unfortunately, all the flight paths were several hundred meters above the clouds and way above the 50 ft mentioned in the HQ brief.
The most I got for bomb drops was on Ultra Heavy setting. Only 4 rail sidings, one troop encampment and one battery had flights that carried bombs. The other air activity settings had one or two bomb drops. There was not a single aerodrome bombed on any setting.
All the yellow lines represent the flight paths of RFC. And only a few of these flight actually carried any payload (i.e. bombs).
The most I got for recon flights was also on Ultra Heavy setting with about 10 recon flights spread thin along the front. The other air activity settings had from 0 (Very Light, Light, Medium) to 5 or 7 (Heavy & Very Heavy) recon flights.
I continued playing my pilot for a few more days until 25 November 1917, and compared the files to see if there were any changes as the battle progressed, but unfortunately, I did not find any difference between day 1 and the other days.
What was I expecting to find (and ended up fixing Using JJJ's mission editor):
1. much much more bomb drops as I increased the air activity setting.
2. much less German patrols. The most danger during that day seemed to be the machine gun fire attacking the low flying aircraft.
3. missions flown closer to the area of operation that was mentioned in the HQ brief.
Early Conclusion after playing WOFF for a few weeks...
If you want to get immersed in WOFF manager (intel, briefing, aces, newspaper, pilot screen, etc...), and then fly a mission with challenging AI/great Damage Model, then you're set.
However, if in addition to the immersion, you want more accuracy of how missions were flown, then you'll definitely need to spend a lot of time with the mission editor to 'fix' the flight paths and objectives.