Jasta 11, Rise of Flight

2nd July 1917, Phalempin airfield, northern France. Pilot: Leutnant Richard Festner

My flight of five Albatros, led by Oblt Sommerfeld, is tasked to patrol the lines. But by the time we're in our cockpits, all that has changed. Enemy aircraft are nearby and we're to intercept them.



Isn't that the Rittmeister's aircraft over to the right?



No time to fret over that. We race across the grass, the sky alive with flak bursts. The biggest concentration is tracking some barely-visible aircraft higher up, but lower down, the gunners are also letting fly at individual aircraft which are zipping around our base.



As my wheels leave the ground, one of the intruders comes in fast from my right. I can see from his stubby appearance and squared-off wings that he's a SPAD.



'You'll do!' I tell myself, and swing around after the enemy. I find that I can overhaul him by cutting across the fast but wide turn he's making.



Behind us, our airfield is being bombed! That will be the higher fliers I glimpsed. Fortunately for us, their bombing hasn't been accurate.



I catch up with the SPAD and after a short turning fight, his wings come off following several short but evidently well-aimed bursts. That'll teach him!



I quickly pick up another Frenchman and see an Albatross who tried to take him head-on crash into a field. Shot down or stalled in? I can't tell. I get onto the second SPAD's tail and give him much the same treatment.



Clearing my tail, I'm surprised to find that the skies are suddenly empty. No aircraft, no flak, nothing. All I can see is some crash sites and disconnected cream SPAD wings on the ground. I gain some height and look around. Still nothing!



Orienting myself, I head for the lines at full speed and in a gentle climb. Maybe I can locate and catch the bombers, who are likely to be retreating in that direction. Or link up with my comrades who are still in the air.



Nothing doing! So I call it quits and spiral around and down, back towards Palemphin.



Back at base, I claim two SPADs shot down. Sommerfeld got one, also. In return, three of us had crashes, not apparently attributed directly to enemy action, for some reason. The crash I saw seemed quite dramatic but must have looked worse than it was, as no-one has been seriously hurt. The map replay revealed all, but unfortunately the written record (all in PWCG) got somewhat truncated. But it also shows the hat trick I scored on my last trip, before we moved to Phalempin. So it looks like I have made ace status - and I'm awarded the Iron Cross, second class!



I resumed my PWCG Jasta 11 campaign after recently applying VonS's new AI improvement mod ( https://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4557118/rof-united-ed-ai-improved-ver-1-1#Post4557118 ) and I'm looking forward to continuing this campaign, to see it in action. As a single player only, I have no notion of moving to Flying Corps. I've invested in a lot of RoF aircraft and while the lack of a BE2 limits the realism of campaigns prior to mid-1917, I reckon RoF still looks great, has plenty of content and plays pretty well, especially with PWCG campaigns - and now also this AI improvement.

Interesting. I have the old ICE package, I think it is called? I could just never get into it for some reason.

Nice write-up 33lima and great screenies. While I can’t do anything with the FMs in RoF (they’re locked across various DLL files) - it’s nice to see the AI a bit more reasonable now, with Spads doing very wide, speedy turns and other things. I also have no use for Flying Circus so will try to get more of my money’s worth from my until-now largely hibernating RoF install.

Recommended for RoFers is to use the “improved gunnery” option in the in-sim menu since it is more historical (slightly more precise shooting, less dispersal) - and then apply/don’t apply Gavagai’s “reduced lethality” mod. as per taste (that mod. tweaks wing robustness on aircraft). I’m running RoF without the reduced lethality mod. since I like the various stock damage effects.

Happy flying,
Von S

Thanks for the tips Von S!

I flew the next mission with 'improved gunnery' and enabled Gavagai's lethality mod as I do think RoF overdoes the wing-stripping effects of gunnery!

This was another line patrol, and this time the Rittmeister was definitely leading.



We didn't make the front, though. Our flak bursts peppered the skies to the north so the boss naturally led us in that direction.



My formation flying being what it is, I found myself lagging a little.



I soon realised we were up against enemy single seaters and that they were equally keen to get to grips with us. What they call these days 'the merge' was a sudden and chaotic mix of Albatrosses, Nieuports and flak.



The Rittmeister seemed to have been caught out of position, or else he preferred something more subtle than a head-on first pass.



There follows a confused series of turning fights with aircraft and tracers flying in all directions. I try to use my powerful Mercedes engine to stay above the fighting. The nimble Nieuports make such tight turns that it's hard to get behind one, breaking hard into any attack.



Despite this, I manage to get some hits on one of the Frenchmen, whose flying becomes more sluggish. This gives me the chance to send him down with a couple of further short bursts.



Pulling back up, I'm able to select a second victim at my leisure. He seems to have been already damaged, for he's streaming a thin wisp of smoke. After a few bursts from astern, he flips over awkwardly with the pilot slumped in his cockpit.



Breaking off the combat and turning to clear my tail, I have another of those 'Where did everybody go?' moments. I seem to be suddenly and completely alone in the air.



I consider briefly resuming the patrol over the lines, but I'm on my own and have used up a fair bit of ammo. So I turn back to Phalempin. As I get there I can see two other Albatrosses in the circuit.



Picking my moment, I manage to get down without too many bumps or overturning. I learn that two of the others have crashed nearby, with no harm to pilots. RoF AI landing accidents?

At least the air-to-air was exciting, with no wing-stripping that I saw, and bith myself and my machine got down undamaged, always a bonus! And as well as a Prussian war merit medal, I got two victories while the Rittmeister got just one! I'm well on the way to becoming one of Jasta 11's top scorers!

I was going to comment on your first patrol it seemed odd that the wings flew off so many aircraft so easily..lol

Another fine post Lima, looking forward to more. Have also flown a couple of campaign missions yesterday and barely got out alive in an Eindecker that was jumped by three DH.2s. Two I managed to damage and they limped back across their lines at full throttle, while the third, undamaged one continued with his mission, doing wide circles above the trenches. I sent my flight mate home too early but he did a wonderful landing, coming in through the gap between two hangars (a rather unorthodox approach that surely irritated our C.O.) - but he made it in, in one piece. (Will see if I can find the pic. and post it later.)

Von S

Hmm. So you piqued my interest enough to re-install and give it a quick whirl! Like most simulators, you have to fight for a while with the controls before you can actually do anything. I struggled with getting the sim to recognize my key changes so much that I thought the mixture lever in the N 17 wasn't articulated because it never moved. Eventually I realized that you have to apply the change, and then apply the change again to get anything to stick and even then it seemed iffy. Anyway, I eventually got everything working except my controls for throttle and mixture were reversed, so you have to pull back on the joystick slider to get full throttle! Weird, but not such a big deal on a rotary until it is time to land. The mixture was a bit more of a challenge as the fight descended several thousand feet. Also, you always seem to start jammed up against the windscreen with the HUD on and auto mixture and radiator engaged. Plus I couldn't seem to figure out how to make the mini map a mega map or access it off of the pause screen, so more work to do there... I finally settled in to try a quick duel. I used the default joystick curves that produced the old rubber-bandy flight that I remembered so well. Also, the default TrackIR profile wigs out at the extreme end of the range, so my vision is a little constrained here. Two D IIs sequentially and a (rough) landing later...



I'll probably play around with it a bit more. At 8GB or so it leaves a remarkably light footprint on your hard drive. If you've never tried, there is a free version that gives you the Spad 13, Albatros D.Va and Nieuport 17 to start out with, which is almost as much as I paid $20 for back in the day, so you can't complain for the considerable amount of fun to be had out of that!

Well done Rick!... I'm tempted to have a go again and see what difference the mod from VonS has on gameplay!

I might try it too at some point. Like I said, it takes up very little space on the hard drive, so I can leave it there without worry. I switched over to s -curves for the joystick profile and that seemed to help a bit. Still more work to do!

Yup, setting up the curves and views is a PITA but worth the effort to get it done.


Here's more info on the "reversed" throttle setting:
https://riseofflight.com/forum/topic/45514-throttle-control-reveresed-problem-resolved/?hl=%2Breverse+%2Bjoystick+%2Baxis#entry660016

And be sure to check out Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator version 16.3.1 for a very immersive campaign experience:
https://riseofflight.com/forum/forum/394-pat-wilsons-campaign-generator/

Thank you, Barkhorn! I actually have used the PWCG before in BoX. If I end up getting into this, I will definitely be heading over there!

Here's an easier axis reverse procedure:

https://riseofflight.com/forum/topic/587-joystick-settings-axis/

...and 777 runs great sales every 3 months or so. That's the time to pick up some planes very cheaply.

Post Cpt
Cyril W. Driftwood
RN
48 Gun Frigate
HMS Lydia 1st Inshore Sqn.

Dispatched for Scouting with orders to Sink , Burn, or take as prize

Those planes are weird, carrick!