Pardon my noobness, but do i right to disable The Forced encounter setting? I just want to make clear that i do not disable all enemies in the sim?

Also does Air Activity setting apply to both entente and central powers? Are there any specific numbers what this exactly do? Increase planes in each flight etc?

The red circle in pre-flight map as explained in the docs indicates the range of possible encounters during next mission or what? The red circle does only show for my airfield and not for any other (enemy) airfields. There are only 1 circle. I am abit confused tbh.

Or simply put, what settings to use for an as historical setting as possible?

In terms of the red circles, hopefully one of our resident red-circle specialists will pitch in with more info.

Regarding the forced encounters and air activity settings, it's largely a matter of preference and also should be tweaked for best/smoothest running results on your particular rig.

To keep things historical, for example, I've set air activity to "light" since I'm flying a couple of campaigns currently in 1915. I have however set forced encounters to "medium," slightly to increase chance of contact with the enemy - and I'm pleased with the results - the outcomes and chances for contact with enemy aircraft still seem realistic to me, for 1915.

As you move up to about 1917 and 1918, I recommend increasing air activity to at least medium - and toggling forced encounters as per taste.

Representative sampling below of what I might try when I set up some later-war careers, and also in terms of early war ones:

1915 - air activity light or lightest, forced encounters off or medium
1916 - air activity light, forced encounters medium
1917 - air activity light with forced encounters at maximum, or air activity medium with forced encounters off
1918 - air activity medium with forced encounters medium, or air activity heavy** with forced encounters off

** Heavy air activity may result in a slight drop in fps on longer missions - use at your discretion. (I will on my rig, for example, stick with activity settings of lightest, light, and medium, to maintain consistent fps.)

Happy flying,
Von S

Here is my understanding: The red circles show the area around your base where WOFF will simulate the war and have planes flying. If you have a powerful computer you can put 'air activity' very heavy and WOFF will have a war raging for hundreds of miles in every direction. If you have a weak computer then put air activity on 'light' and WOFF will only simulate the war in a small circle around your base. I forget why there are two red circles; something like inner circle is airfields that will have planes flying out of on missions and outer circle shows targets of these missions?

Note that the name 'air activity' is a bit misleading ...it would be better called 'radius of air activity'. It does affects how many aircraft you encounter somewhat because with a bigger circle there are more flights crisscrossing the sky, but the extra flights are spread over a bigger area so you may notice little change.

So basically set 'air activity' as high as your CPU can handle. If the game starts to slow way down (low FPS) then you have too many planes in the air and the CPU is over whelmed. For my computer, it can handle 'heavy' during the early war, but can only handle 'medium' in the late war. The setting you choose is not to be based on trying to match history or preference, it is simply to match the game to the power of your computer. Set air activity as high as your system can handle; simple.

The 'forced encounters' setting will move some of the random enemy flights more into the path of you flight. If you leave 'forced encounters' off then you will have quite a few uneventful missions, which is how it was in real life. That can be a bit boring for many people so if you want more action then simply 'force' more encounters.

What 77_Scout is absolutely correct. The setting on the Regional Air Activity only increases or decreases the Air Activity radius, it does not add or subtract anything within it's selected circles.

The smaller circles is called the Local Air Activity circle and the larger circle is the Regional Air Activity circle.

Setting Forced Encounters only increases your chances for Air-Air combat if you do not like a lot of boring flights like in real life.

Thank you dawnpatrol for asking the question, and for 77Scout and PR for further clarifying the issue. This especially clears up how the "air activity" setting works - I was under the impression that it controlled air traffic "congestion," but it only modifies air activity radius while leaving congestion ratio constant - although, technically, with wider air activity radius, there is also greater chance of contact with the enemy since you are flying for longer periods through an area of air traffic, than if you narrow down the radius via light/lightest settings.

(Then again, if the air activity radius is "mobile" and moves around with your aircraft/flight, with you at the center of the circle always - this would then have no effect on the frequency of encounters with enemy aircraft....sorry for thinking out loud here...oh the technicalities....but I think I understand now....if the radius of air activity is mobile, with you at the center, it is strictly a performance setting/toggle and doesn't alter chances of enemy encounters...on the other hand, if it's a fixed, non-traveling radius...then yes, wider radius will slightly increase chances of contact, etc....)

For those who are curious to test the various possibilities of such settings, I recommend testing perhaps with forced encounters at medium, at light and then at medium air activity settings - to see if the frequency of forced encounters goes up noticeably based on radius of air activity, or is largely separate from the radius of air activity setting. Might take a while to go through all of the settings and possibilities though - I'll tinker casually with such things as I fly my campaigns and maybe keep a tally of what's happening. Always something fun to discover in the OBD sims.

Happy flying all,
Von S

I believe the circle of activity is fixed to your home airfield, so doesn't 'follow you around'. Hopefully someone else can confirm.

The center of the circle is based directly on the line drawn between your airfield and your target.

The circles are established when your mission is assigned and they do not moved during the mission.

The higher the Regional Air Activity the larger the circle, but at what price ??? If you never even get close to the edge of your circles using Lite then Medium, Heavy or Very Heavy means you are just wasting CPU cycles for planes you will never meet during your mission (unless you decide to fly completely off course.)

Generally that is true, but not always....Quote from WOFF website:

The rings simply dictate which squads in the theatre may fly - thus it is possible that flights paths can then exceed the radii of the rings if the specific squadrons target/directives selected during mission creation determine such.

Note these rings dictate which squads are 'active/available' to put up flights and is NOT the limit of these squads flight paths.

The percentage of squads within the two radii that fly is dictated again by the workshops regional air activity setting

Also, a bunch of flights will have air starts where they will be in the middle of a mission waypoint to target.

By the way, that features list on the WOFF website is definitely worth reading.

For instance those with weaker pc's they can rather choose airactivity light or something, with medium to high encounters. That simulates encounters and traffic like it would have been with hgher activity etc. I is to avoid setting light activity and therefore never running into an enemy.

BTW. No need to manually raise activity later in war etc. The manager scales the odds and activity automatically. e.G. air activity very light in 1918 has still lot more traffic than maybe high in 1915

Guys - Thank you for the info, it will be very helpful. As I have only recently returned to WOFF this has been the one issue I have been lest clear on

Cheers

Great info, thanks! I was abit stuck in thinking of the old RB3D where 2 enemy planes always sat waiting for you on every mission, and that forced encounters in WOFF were something like that, glad it is not! :-)

I have noticed only difference in cpu performance is the higher these values, the slower the time compression, and since i like to timeskip while in transit more than often, i shall set something in a mix between Medium/hvy activity and forced encounters at med/off.

Invaluable help here at the forum, i really mean it, thanks again!

As OrbyxP said on the website products page you can read the entry explaining about the rings ;

Here's is section 17 of that:

17) Operations (Air Activity) radii for Local and Regional Squadrons (Living World) are now displayed on the briefing map - they vary with workshops regional air activity settings, with player location, and types of operations/craft assignment (These are not changed from WOFFUE - just the rings display is added). Note these rings dictate which squads are 'active/available' to put up flights and is NOT the limit of these squads flight paths.

The rings simply dictate which squads in the theatre may fly - thus it is possible that flights paths can then exceed the radii of the rings if the specific squadrons target/directives selected during mission creation determine such (OOB system specific (Pol: OOB = our Order of Battle system) )! The percentage of squads within the two radii that fly is dictated again by the workshops regional air activity setting - its used for the two functions.

Targets/Directives for the squads 'activated' by the Local and Regional radii (affects Search Functionality): Fighters: Fighter Squads generally obey their typical target range allowance as dictated by the squadron database - limited to a max of 70 miles. However if they cannot find a target within that range for their given mission directive (one must understand we have a finite number of targets in any given area) the range allowance is increased incrementally by 5 miles until they do find one. If they don’t find one they simply use the last one found. Note: at no stage do we abort the squads mission (cull the flight) - they will fly - this is important especially in sparsely populated areas (squads and targets) and early years to keep air activity going.

2 Seaters: 2 Seater Squads generally obey their typical target range allowance as dictated by the squadron database - limited to a max of 70 miles. However if they cannot find a target within that range for their given mission directive (again..there's a finite number of targets in any given area) the range allowance is increased incrementally by 25 miles until they do find one. If they don’t find one they simply use the last one found. Note: at no stage do we abort the squads mission (cull the flight) - they will fly - this is important especially in sparsely populated areas (squads and targets) and early years to keep air activity going.

Heavies: Heavy Bomber Squads generally obey their typical target range allowance as dictated by the squadron database - and basically have no limit apart from their operational range - as they are long range bombers If they dont find one in range (seldom happens with Heavies) they simply use the last one found (this could be improved) Typically these squads will be flying long routes. Note: at no stage do we abort the squads mission (cull the flight) - they will fly - this is important especially in sparsely populated areas (squads and targets) and early years to keep air activity going. This is all part of the OBD Living World system that is SPECIFICALLY designed to avoid only having activity along the players prescribed mission path - as most other campaign systems do - and to create a world that is alive wherever the player might end up going.