Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Wanker on June 20, 2002, 10:07:13 AM
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And it was a very different experience than in AH. I have somehow managed to figure out the keymapping and joystick calibration, so off I went in a 109E last night looking for a fight. Since there is no dar bar or radar dots, finding a fight is a bit like playing the lottery. I flew in the general direction of the Allied lines looking for a fight. I was up high, around 15,000 ft, above a very nice looking cloud layer. Couldn't buy a con in about 20 minutes, so I started back home, descending to about 5,000 ft. As I'm crusing home, I'm scanning the map for an airfield, any airfield. I couldn't find a way to zoom the map out(don't even know if that is possible), so once my airbase went off it, I was lost! ;)
The engine management is nice, so I turn my thottle RPM's to economy mode, throttle back and hope I don't run out of fuel before I find a base. Then I notice some pretty red tracers go whistling over my right wing. So I instantly break left and look back---OOPS! Forgot, no six view in WW2OL. So I look to my rear left and right, can't see diddly. I dive for some speed, increase revs to max RPM's, push the throttle to the wall, and do a zoom climb, a wingover, and then finally see my adversary--a French Hawk 75.
This guy can't be very good, because I somehow got on his six and shot him down. Feeling very satisfied, I continued on my journal and luckily stumbled upon a friendly base. Coming in for my first landing, I drop flaps and gear, reduce revs, chop throttle.....and promptly stall and end up flipped over on the grassy field. :D
Oh well, it was fun. From my one flight, here are my observations so far:
The FM feels good in the air, maybe even a little better than AH. I'm not a pilot, so I have no experience to base this on, but the planes acted more smoothly when flying. Manuvering on the ground is challenging, much more so than in AH. Dunno if this is a good thing, but it's definately different!
SA is much more difficult than AH, because of the lack of a rear view or adjustable views, and the lack of dots and dar bar. So it is much more difficult to find a fight. On the other hand, it felt a lot more realistic. I had to really look around me at all times. Still, I felt blind during my dogfight. I lost track of my opponent many times in the fight.
Instead of a detailed damage list, you have a lame "Quake-like" health and stamina meter thingie that goes down as you take damage to your body. For a sim that is so much more realistic in so many ways, I'm surprised that they would use this type of system in the aircraft. I can understand using that sort of display when you're playing a ground soldier, but not in an aircraft.
All in all, I had a good time, and while I can't say yet that I'm definately going to keep my account open at the end of this re-trial period, the chances are good that I will. I spent some time running around as a Soldat last night, too, and had some fun defending a town.
One thing I can say without reservation is that WW2OL has come a long way from what I remember in the beginning last year. it's not in direct competition with AH, IMO, because the focus of the two games are completely different.
Frame rates are up to an acceptable rate(avg of 25fps in the air at 1600x1200x32), but then again I'm running on an AMD XP2100+ with 512MB of DDR-SDRAM and a GF4 Ti4400.
I'm going to give it a real workout in the next week until the trial is over and before AH 1.10 comes out, so I'll keep you posted.
Oh, and Oct....my callsign is banana24 over there.
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Originally posted by banana
Instead of a detailed damage list, you have a lame "Quake-like" health and stamina meter thingie that goes down as you take damage to your body. For a sim that is so much more realistic in so many ways, I'm surprised that they would use this type of system in the aircraft. I can understand using that sort of display when you're playing a ground soldier, but not in an aircraft.
The stamina bars are for the pilot only. The left one (green) is your stamina and determines how many G's you can pull for any amount of time. Get tired (green bar goes down) and you black out quicker. The right bar (yellow?) is your blood O2 level. If you get shot and start to bleed this will drop. If you are hit in an artery you will bleed to death soon :) The o2 blood level effects your stamina level too. The vehicles have there own very complex damage models. I'm still under NDA so I don't know if I can talk about the logs that I saw back in beta, but the damage model is VERY complex. Just not visual yet....
Maybe it's time I give it another shot too. Frame rates turned me away a few months ago but if they are back up maybe I'll finaly be able to strafe soldiers with the 110 :)
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I'm beginning to have a little fun now in WW2OL, as a grunt. Just can't get the hang of the FM but, I have AH for that.
Maybe we should start an AH squad over there, lol.
My callsign is bkapache in ww2ol.
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Maybe we should start an AH squad over there, lol
I think that's a great idea, Apache. I really do. I think WW2OL requires more squad participation than even AH does, especially to have fun.
What side do you play on, and when? My wife and son are out of town until Friday night, you wanna get together tonight and play grunts?
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banana, check your email ya punk! Let's hook up tonight. I'll *gasp* even fly LW if you want me to.
I got 1.64 installed last night but after setting up the keymapper in offline mode didn't have time to fight. I did however, take a little time to fly the Hurricane Mk I, 109E-4 and the Spitfire Mk I in offline mode. Impressions follow.
Hurricane - I could be wrong, but I think she's pulling the wrong way on taking off. I'll have to recheck that, tho, that might have been when my rudders were backwards (I have to invert the axis in keymapper to get them to work correctly. *shrug*) Anyways, as usual, it takes attention to the nose to get her down the run way straight. After getting in the air and trimming her... I could only stall her by either going straight up until gravity won or if I was in level flight and yanked back hard she'd snap roll. She would NOT stall in a turn. In offline mode, there's a bomb target that's a black X on the ground with two or three concentric red circles around the X, basic bullseye stuff for the bombsite. I came in about 250+ mph and began a tight turn around the outer circle. I pulled about 4-5 G's in this and the speed gradually bled out, and I greyed a little, I avoided blackout. Elevator was maybe about 80% deflected. As the G's went down (speed was going down) I could deflect the elevators more. Eventually I was fully pulling back on the stick banked about 80 degrees in a left hand turn running inside the outer circle of the bullseye. G's were about 2.5 - 3, speed about 180 I think (I didn't zoom in to make sure.) I could do this indefinitely. I held it for at least 5 minutes. Full deflection on the elevators, 80 degree bank (little to no rudder), indefinite 3 G turn. (more on this in a bit.) Ok, that got boring so I decided to loop. got some speed, eased back on the stick until it was fully deflected and held it there. Indefinite looping, and gained horizontal ground in the direction I was looping. I felt I could do it indefinitely. I put more effort into testing the Hurri, because she's the bird I use most in WWIIOL.
109E-4. Much easier to get off the ground, and trimming is more sensitive. Other than that, she's just as smooth as the Hurricane. I came into the turn at 400-500kph (didn't zoom in) and pulled a nice 5G turn (left 80 deg bank). I didn't fully deflect the elevators so as to not black out. Speed bled and eventually I was fully deflected on the elevators pulling a sustained 2.7-3.1 G turn. Indefinitely. I thought she might bleed enough E to stall, but it wasn't the case. I didn't do the loop test because frankly I was running out of time and I wanted to check the Spit.
Spit. in between Hurri and 109 in terms of ground handling on takeoff. In air she was also smooth, and trimming was more like the Hurri and not as sensitive as the 109. I started into the lefthand turn much like the other planes. Kept it about 80% deflected so I wouldn't blackout and then as the G's dropped I could deflect the stick more. Full deflection about 2.5-3G turn, 80 degree bank... but what's this??? The left wing is starting to dip a bit more... a stall??? no way! sure enough she started to stall. I could recover her fast, but if I went back into it, she'd stall again! So the Spit will actually stall in a sustained turn with the stick fully deflected, but the Hurri and the 109 will not.
What does this mean? Well, after viewing the Hurricane behavior last night (and before doing the 109 and Spit this morning) I took the Hurri Mk I up in AH. I could duplicate the indefinite turn with the same accel reading as I was getting in WWIIOL. The difference was I was maybe about 65-75% deflected on the stick while doing this. If I pulled more, I could stall out the Hurricane.
So from my experiences in the games, it appears that WWIIOL is what some would call "easy mode." In a sustained turn, you can't deflect the elevators enough in the Hurri and 109 to stall, and in the Hurri, you can do clean loops just by fully deflecting the stick. In AH, to loop you have to be good, you get off kilter and you'll pay for it with a stall if you keep trying to loop. The Spitfire in WWIIOL appears to be able to be flown sloppily and you can stall her out in a sustained turn.
Which is the right FM? I dunno. Are the elevators really deflecting fully in WWIIOL and just not getting the authority they get in AH? who knows.
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banana, Ozark started the 332nd FM over there as a squad a year ago. Oz, ghosth and me are still in it. LOL
If we start an AH one though, I can drop outta the 332nd one since neither Oz nor ghost subscribe.
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"So from my experiences in the games, it appears that WWIIOL is what some would call "easy mode." In a sustained turn, you can't deflect the elevators enough in the Hurri and 109 to stall, and in the Hurri, you can do clean loops just by fully deflecting the stick"
How does stick setup work in WW2OL? It's possible to almost get the planes to fly like that in AH--almost--so I am wondering if perhaps WW2OL's default joystick setup means when you pull 100% on your stick the in-game plane isn't actually at full deflection.
You can't quite do that in AH because, as far as I know at least, you can only map through 90% of the joystick's travel...though I wouldn't mind if I'm wrong :)
Or it's possible that WW2OL's flight model just sucks. I couldn't get the game to run at more than 5 FPS when I tried it so I can't really say either way.
J_A_B
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Hey banana. I'm usually on (when I get to) around 7 or 8 est. until around 9, then log onto AH around 9 when the BK's start loggin in.
Not sure if I will be able to tonight but if I do, I'll look ya up. Matters not to me whether it be axis or allies.
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banana head for
http://www.tgpo.net/maps.asp
and get his 4 page map. Very detailed and a must have for anyone. Also some great links for tips tweaks etc. Glad you had a good time:-) Check your sides Order of Battle on the page you enter the game from and get the air and ground radio freqs, always tune one channel to Origin.
hardcase
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I didn't look at stick setup closely. I can do so this afternoon.
edit: thanks for the map link hardcase. I couldn't find the map I had printed out for the last trial campaign.
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Thanks for the Map link, Hard. Going to make getting back to base a whole lot easier. ;)
Nifty, I'll respond when I get home, let's meet up tonight and have some fun! Let's go British and maybe we'll run into Apache if he's on as well. We should form an AH squad just for kicks.
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Oct's callsign over there is none other than "oct".
In the few times that I've been on, I've only been Axis. Can't get enough of that 110 :) I'm going to buy some ram today (only 128 as of now) so I HOPE that will solve some of the 15 second freezes that result in a massive lawn dart.
So, tonight at 7-9 eastern as Allied? I'm there. How will we find eachother? I haven't figured out the comms system just yet. Is there a country channel we can communicate with?
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banana..the in game map cant be expanded..BUT...that blue arrow points back to home base and if you take a mission a red arrow points toward the target. You really do need that map tho:)
you can high speed stall those ac with enough hamfisting.
BTW to take a screenshot..hit the F9 key.
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Oct, it certainly wont hurt:-)..free up as much ram when you enter the sim. Nothing running in the background 'cept maybe RW. You were definitely hitting the HD loading textures and getting that big spike. One thing i like to do is..turn off virutal memory, reboot, run defrag, then turn virtual back on. Makes one contiguous swap file. Guys, you have posting privs as long as the freebit is on, so, post on the ww2ol forums if you have ANY questions or problems. Like most ppl here we are always ready to help.
hardcase
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Originally posted by banana
Thanks for the Map link, Hard. Going to make getting back to base a whole lot easier. ;)
Nifty, I'll respond when I get home, let's meet up tonight and have some fun! Let's go British and maybe we'll run into Apache if he's on as well. We should form an AH squad just for kicks.
rgr that. If I get to play tonight, go British.
Yeah, I think an AH squad would be fun. Maybe the "AHbananas"? :)
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sounds good to me guys. I'll get a Roger Wilco host set up if you want to use some voice comms.
email me at nifty@cox.net for the IP and password (won't be home until about 5:30pm ET so don't expect replies before then.) ;)
Oct, in the radio buffer, you can tune to individual players. That's an easy way to find out if someone is online. The last freebie I played in, if the person was online, the name wouldn't take in the buffer. If they were online it would take. :)
Sweet on the British. ;) If we fly I've already got a British Air persona. I'm 82% to Corporal. lol. If we grunt or tank, doesn't matter which branch we do, I'll be a new persona regardless.
hardcase - yeah, I can stall 'em with some violent stick action when faster, I was just testing out sustained turns at lower speeds (which is usually what WWIIOL dogfights end up as.) I was just surprised that in the Hurri that I can only pull 3G turns at 200mph (which can be held indefinitely in both WWIIOL and AH flight models) with the stick fully deflected, when in AH I can get more elevator authority with the stick fully deflected. Same with looping. I just am not sure if I should be able to get more out of the Hurricane than I'm getting in WWIIOL.
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i was surprised at the lower authority on the elevators, myself. But some Areo Engineers have looked and said it is correct. Diff throws on elevators for Climb and Dive. Look at em offline in external mode.
You can also find ouf if anyone is on...by .m ID(case sensitive) Message that is DOT M ID MESS.
m=message
Spits can only be Spawned from England, be prepared for long ride. Use Economy setting for fuel.
hardcase
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banana-
Observation: If you are in a 109, head toward either the FBs (Forward Bases) or AF (Airfields). You will find activity one way or the other.
Oh, you were about 14,500 feet too high to catch an Allied plane. ;)
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If you notice the small arrows along the roadside on the map, these are locations of forward bases. If an enemy has your town/ AB contested chances are they are4 attacking from a FB which is located between thier town and yours. Just follow the map on the roads and look for the arrow pointing towards your town...grab a Blenhein Mk1 and go drop 4 250k bombs on em and ruin thier day.:D
Also, the 550th Tigertails get together on Wednesday nights at 8:00 PM EST as allied. We also have a bunch of others who join in and will gladly get together with anyone who wants to join in.